Originally published on orature.africa
In this essay, Oriiz U. Onuwaje explores rhythm as evidence of history rather than entertainment. Long before museums, libraries, or written records, African societies preserved memory through repeated movement, sound, and pattern. Dance and rhythm carried identity, order, and intelligence—kept alive not in buildings, but in bodies.
As African rhythms now resonate globally, the article reframes dance as a living archive: a system of memory that endured displacement, silence, and change. What the world hears today is not a trend, but tradition still in motion.
