The akonting (pronounced [ə'kɔntiŋ], or ekonting in French spelling) is a traditional string instrument played by the Jola people in West Africa, including Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau. It has a body made from a gourd covered with animal skin, two long strings used for playing melodies, and one short string that creates a steady background sound, similar to the short "thumb string" on a five-string banjo.

According to Jola oral traditions, the akonting was first made in the village of Kanjanka in Lower Casamance, Senegal, near the Casamance River. The name of this village is connected to the most common way to tune the akonting’s three strings. Starting with the shortest string, the tuning is called "kan" (a note one octave higher), "jan" (the main note of the scale), and "ka" (a note that is slightly lower than the seventh note in the scale).

The akonting can be tuned in different ways, similar to how the five-string banjo is played in traditional styles. One common tuning in Casamance is dGF. In Gambia, the first long melody string is raised by a half-step to create a natural seventh note, as in cFE.

Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta, a Gambian Jola scholar and musician, studied the akonting in the 1980s. He noted that the akonting is very similar to the buchundu of the Manjago people in Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, the busunde of the Papel people, and the kisinta of the Balanta people in Guinea-Bissau.

Recent research by Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta, Ulf Jägfors, and Shlomo Pestcoe at the 8th Annual Banjo Collectors Gathering in 2005 suggests that the banjo likely originated from gourd-shaped string instruments like the akonting found across West Africa. Other similar instruments include the Frafra koliko in Ghana, the Kotokoli lawa in Togo, Benin, and Ghana, the Gwari kaburu in Nigeria, and the Hausa gurmi, komo, komsa, and wase in Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana. The earliest versions of the banjo were similar to these instruments, which enslaved West Africans in the Caribbean began making and playing around the early 1700s.

Relationship to banjo

Of all the many types of West African plucked lutes, the Jola akonting is the instrument that most closely resembles early North American gourd banjos. This similarity is seen in both the akonting's structure and the traditional way it is played, called o'teck, which is similar to the stroke, or frailing, style used to play the banjo. This style is considered the oldest known method for playing the banjo.

Both the akonting o'teck and the banjo stroke style are types of down-picking, a technique where the fingernail of one finger—either the index or middle finger—is used to strike the melody strings downward, like using a plectrum. After this motion, the player's thumb hits the top short "thumb string" to create a rhythmic beat that supports the melody.

In the early 19th century, European American performers known as blackface minstrels learned the stroke style of playing the banjo from African American musicians. These performers helped spread the popularity of the banjo in the 1830s and 1840s. Before this time, the banjo was played only by African American and African Caribbean musicians. The stroke style was the main way to play the 5-string banjo until the late 1860s, when the up-picking style, also called finger-picking, became popular. Today, the stroke style of down-picking is still used in rural Southern communities and is called frailing, clawhammer, or thumping.

The Jola o'teck technique for playing the akonting is the only known down-picking style of lute playing found in West Africa. It is also the only West African lute with a short "thumb string" played in this way, which is similar to the banjo's design.

Other West African lutes, such as the Manjago buchundu, the Papel busunde, the Balanta kisinta, and the wooden-bodied lutes used by griots (like the Mande ngoni, the Wolof xalam, the Fula hoddu, and the Soninke gambare), also have a short "thumb string" that creates a continuous sound. This feature is common in lutes from Senegambia that have three or more strings and are played with fingers. In contrast, lutes with only one or two strings, such as the gourd-bodied gambra of the Haratin in Mauritania or the gourd-bodied koliko of the Frafra in Ghana and the wooden-bodied garaya of the Hausa in Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana, are played with flat plectrums. These instruments do not use a drone string because it is not useful for them.

The standard griot playing technique uses a 2-finger up-picking pattern: the index finger plucks upward on a melody string, followed by the thumb plucking the short drone string, and ending with the index finger brushing downward across all strings. This method is similar to some old-time 2-finger up-picking styles in the rural southern United States but is different from down-picking and not related to the early "stroke style" of playing the 5-string banjo or its later versions.

The Akonting today

In the mid-1980s, Gambian Jola scholar and musician Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta began studying and recording the folk lute called the akonting. At that time, few people outside the rural Jola villages of Senegambia knew about the instrument. Even within Jola communities, few young people were interested in learning to make or play the akonting. Daniel’s father, a traditional akonting player from the Casamance region of Senegal, where the instrument originated, encouraged Daniel to learn the akonting to help preserve this important part of Jola culture.

Today, there is growing interest in the akonting in Senegambia. Young musicians such as Bouba Diedhiou, a teenage radio performer from a rural Casamance village, are continuing traditional styles. Sana Ndiaye, known for his work with the Dakar-based hip hop group Gokh-Bi System, is helping more people learn about the instrument.

Because of Daniel Jatta’s efforts and the work of others, including Swedish banjoist and researcher Ulf Jägfors, British banjo historian Nick Bamber, American musician and scholar Ben Nelson, and banjoist and gourd instrument expert Paul Sedgwick, the akonting is gaining global attention. These researchers have helped people understand the akonting and other West African folk lutes, which are now being recognized as ancestors of the banjo. Many museums have added the akonting and similar instruments to their collections, and experts are studying them more closely.