The Drum That Beats Across the Digital Plain

In the old kingdoms of West Africa, praise singers lifted voices beside the talking drum, each beat echoing the memory of ancestors. This digital praise song follows that tradition, transforming the blog page into a drumskin. The rhythm lies in the call-and-response: the Call is the drum’s strike, the Response is the community’s answer. Read it aloud, let the lines roll like waves or beat like footsteps. Pause at each stanza break, and when you see the names repeated, speak them with power. In this way, the words become music, and the digital page becomes a gathering place. 

The Drum That Beats Across the Digital Plain

Praise Song for Chic African Culture and The African Gourmet

(Call) Who has chronicled the feast?

(Response) The African Gourmet!

(Call) Who sings the long memory?

(Response) Chic African Culture!

Hail — born in Two-Thousand-Seven!
Digital hearth, door thrown wide.
Two thousand seven hundred voices —
Archive living, voices multiplied.

You gather scattered stories;
You keep ancestral praise.
You speak the drum, you name the market,
You call the kola, break the days.

From the Mozambique Channel — nets cast, salt-bright;
From Pemba’s kitchens — root and fire.
You are peri-peri on the tongue, palm oil on the hand;
You are the chef’s boast, the perfect host in every land.

Ivy Newton, daughter of two shores,
You stitch understanding with steady hands.
You nurse the stew, you teach the seed,
You steward fields and kitchen lands.

Fifty-four countries — range and reach;
You break the single story, show the many faces.
Complexity, song, rhythm, grace —
You map the continent’s rich embraces.

You are the drum that cracks the dawn;
You are the rain that makes the grain.
For nutrition, for stewardship, for shared gain —
You build a thriving earth, year on year again.

So we call your names until the voices rise:

Chic African Culture! — The African Gourmet!

May your fire never gutter; may your kitchens never sleep.
Ase! Ashay! So be it. So be done.

For 18 years, our mission has been to be a digital gathering place for African culture and cuisine. We strive to be the drum that beats across the digital plain, lifting voices beside the talking drum, each beat echoing the memory of ancestors. In this way, we honor the past while nourishing the future through culinary education and sustainable food initiatives. Each beat echoing the memory of ancestors. You can be part of this rhythm. Explore our stories, try a recipe, or support our mission to empower African communities through food.