Dinizulu was born September 27, 1956, in
New York City. At an early age, he began playing drums and other percussion instruments. He drew inspiration from the musical heritage of his family. For many generations, the Dinizulu clan had been active in music and performance. Dinizulu's father,
Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu
(aka Gus Dinizulu,
né Augustus Edwards; 1930–1991), an
American, was an internationally acclaimed African drummer. Dinizulu's mother, Ohema Afua Owusua
(née Alice Brown; 1930–2007), also an
American, was a principal dancer for
Asadata Dafora's Dance Company — the first dance company to put African dance and music on Broadway in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s. To gain a deeper knowledge of African traditions, as a young man Dinizulu traveled to
Ghana where he lived and learned for two years before returning to the United States. Since then, he made over 30 trips to Africa, where he resided for part of the year. While in Ghana, he studied with expert drummers, Kofi Nabenadi, C. K. Ganyo, and Sully Emmorro. He also learned from elders of the
Fanti people. A major influence on his musical growth was his involvement with the Fanti’s
Asafo (warrior) music, a tradition dating back many centuries. Apart from this, Dinizulu studied extensively with Haitian master drummers, Louis Celestine,
Frisner Augustin, and Alphonse Cimber. He also studied various forms of traditional music from Brazil with the late Loramil Machado. Additionally, Dinizulu studied African and African-American hand drumming with his father, Baba Chief Bey (James Hawthorne Bey), Baba Kwame Ishangi, and many others. In addition, he has conducted extensive research with the
Maroons of Jamaica, the
Ewe of Togo, the
Orisha worshipers of Trinidad and Tobago, Rada ritual musicians in Haiti and the
Ring Shouters of the Georgia Sea Islands. Dinizulu worked with several domestic and international cultural organizations, including
UNESCO. UNESCO declared 2004 to be the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition by the United Nations General Assembly. Dinizulu performed and lectured on endangered African-American instruments as a part of a UNESCO conference of scholars from around the world gathered at
Tulane University. Furthermore, Dinizulu worked with the
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, an organization for documenting, preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the culture and history of black people worldwide. He has performed music and conducted traditional African rituals for the Schomburg Center. He performed at the 75th-anniversary celebrations of the Schomburg Center which included pouring libation for the grand opening of the “Lest We Forget: The Triumph over Slavery Exhibit”. Dinizulu also performed libation and drumming at “A Harlem Tribute to the Freedom Schooner Amistad”. He performed the drum rituals to help bring the
Amistad into port in Harlem, New York. Besides this, Dinizulu was a participant in the African-American delegation at the First Annual Emancipation Day Celebration in Ghana, Africa in 1998 which was sponsored by the government of Ghana. The African-American delegation was responsible for the re-interment of one escaped slave, Samuel Carson with a full state funeral. Emancipation Day is a remembrance of the abolition of Chattel Slavery. Learning drumming and African culture, according to a biographical profile, was a lifetime process for Dinizulu. The profile asserted that he developed an encyclopedic knowledge of drums, percussion, and the art of drumming from his worldwide travels and studies of the music of other cultures as well as his heartfelt love for music and learning. Dinizulu had assembled a group of musicians from around the world, called the Kotoko Society, with whom he composed and performed regularly.
Nana Kimati Dinizulu died July 7, 2013. ==Music==