Aboubacar Sylla

Aboubacar Sylla is a master percussionist, musician, performer and teacher of West African music and dance, as well as a traditional instrument builder.

Aboubacar has been performing professionally for over 20 years, and teaches and shares the music, dance and culture of West Africa throughout the United States and around the world.

Born into a family of traditional musicians (Griot/Djeli) in Guinea, West Africa, Aboubacar began his study of both the djembe and balafon as a child. He lived, studied and performed with his balafon teacher until he moved to Conakry, the capital of Guinea, to perform with his family, as well as other musicians. At this time, Aboubacar was invited to join Les Ballets Africains, the prestigious national dance company of Guinea. For six years he performed with them, playing not one, but five traditional West African instruments – the balafon, djembe, krin, doundoun and bote.

Bramaya, Aboubacar’s West African dance and drum Ensemble, is named in honor of his father’s village and combines new musical ideas and traditional West African rhythms.  

Bramaya Members

  • This is Patricia, our Doundoun player ✨🎶

    Patrícia Jacobs has been drumming and dancing for 30 years. She began her drumming journey around 1995 with the Dawi Forte group and went on to co-found the Lannaya Drum and Dance Ensemble in 2000, where she performed as both a dancer and drummer. In 2007, she joined the all-women’s group The Djembabes, contributing as a singer, drummer, and dancer. She also danced briefly with Sakebo, led by renowned choreographer Jean Claude Lessou from Ivory Coast.

    A lifelong choral singer, Patrícia began at age 14 and has been part of the St. Ignatius Catholic Church choir in Austin for 46 years. Alongside her husband, she has sung with Austin's Masterworks Singers for 12 years, enjoying several concert tours across Europe with the group.

    Since its founding in 2011, Patrícia has performed with Bramaya, initially as a dancer and now as a dundun drum player. That same year, she started teaching beginner West African dance, a passion she pursued for seven years. 

  • R. Chris Johnson is a talented musician who plays the saxophone, djembe, and dun dun for Bramaya West African Drum and Dance. Growing up in Houston, TX, he was immersed in a rich musical environment thanks to his parents, who instilled in him a deep love for music and dance. Now residing in Austin, TX, Chris continues to honor the gospel music tradition of the AME church while exploring new artistic horizons.

    His latest project, Black Earth, draws on the teachings of Sankofa, encouraging a reflection on the past to inspire innovative creations for the future. Just as he contributes to Bramaya, Chris uses this project to weave together history and contemporary expression, creating a vibrant tapestry of sound and culture.

  • This is Nigel, one of Bramaya's djembe players 🙌

    Nigel Jacobs started studying music at age 7, learning classical violin until he was 21, and then following his passion into folk, jazz and rock styles.  He then learned to play bass guitar, performing with various  jazz and rock bands in California and NYC.  After moving to Austin, Texas, in the 1990s, he dedicated himself to West African drumming and dance, performing on djembe, dun-dun, balafon, and krin with groups like Dawi Forte, Lannaya, Sakebo, and Bramaya. In addition to his performance work, Nigel is an ambient music producer, sings in local choirs, and plays jazz bass with the Avian Time ensemble.

  • This is Alex, one of Bramaya’s djembe & balafon players!

    Alejandro Navarro has been drumming for over 20 years, with his passion ignited while hitchhiking through Veracruz, Mexico, around 2001. He was captivated by groups of traveling artisans who played djembe and danced with fire, feeling an irresistible urge to join in. After returning to his hometown of Austin, Texas, in 2005, Alejandro moved beyond drum circles and began playing djembe with Alseny Sylla for Jean Claude Lessou’s West African dance classes. He later joined Lannaya and then Bramaya, guided by his teacher and close friend, Aboubacar Sylla.

  • This is Imani, one of Bramaya’s dancers!

    Imani has a background in West African dance. She has been a Bramaya member since its beginnings. One of her passions is to create cultural arts programming that serves to connect to the African heritage and traditions through West African and African American drum, dance, music, and storytelling. She is the co-founder of Austin-based artist collective RE-CLAIM (Revolving Evolution of Culture Loving African Americans In Motion). She is also the dance director at the Austin Samba School.

  • This is Gail, one of Bramaya’s dancers!

    Born in the early 1950s, Gail grew up in the “Land of a Thousand Dances.” At an early age she learned the Jitterbug & Swing, and as years moved on, she kept up with the dances of the times; the Twist, Pony, Shing-a-ling, Boogaloo, Bristol Stomp, Mashed Potato, Jerk, Watusi, Monkey, and more. In college she switched to ballet and jazz, and later became an aerobics instructor and personal trainer. In 2007 she went to a friend’s West African dance performance and was mesmerized by what she saw. In a mind-blowing way, she saw the direct connection between the traditional West African moves and the dances she grew up with. She said to herself, “I can do this!” and immediately signed up for her first African dance class with Jean Claude Lessou.

    She is still taking Jean Claude’s classes, and since 2013 has been performing with Bramaya West African Dance and Drum Ensemble and its founder/director, master percussionist Aboubacar Sylla.


  • This is Boo, Bramaya’s base player.

    Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Boo Resnick has had a love affair with music for decades.
    From elementary school to the present day, through many musical styles and thousands of performances, Boo’s musical journey as a bassist and vocalist has lasted a lifetime. He has played professionally in Texas since 1975 and has been a member of such noted bands as Ain’t Misbehavin’, CPR, the Austin Lounge Lizards and Hotcakes, playing rock, Motown, blues, folk, country, bluegrass and swing.

    “Bramaya West African Drum and Dance has presented me with the opportunity to learn new and challenging styles; the traditional forms of Guinea with a modern twist. It is also very moving for me to be able to assist Abou Sylla to achieve his multicultural musical vision.”


  • This is Victoria, one of Bramaya’s dancers!

    Victoria Schillinger hails from Prince George’s County, Maryland where she sneaked her way into her first dance class at age 6. She has been a student and performer of West African dance since the 1990s.  Victoria first became a student of Wo’se African Dance theater based out of Washington, DC, led by Aidoo Holmes. She later studied and performed under the direction of Coyaba Dance Theater led by Sylvia Soumah, Artistic Director of the DanceAfrica DC festival.  Victoria moved to Austin in 2020 and has danced and performed locally with Afrique Gninze led by Jean Claude Lessou and has been a member of Bramaya since 2022 under the direction of Aboubacar Sylla. 


  • This is Mami, one of Bramaya’s dancers!

    Mami is from Guinea, West Africa. She started dancing and playing music in 2003 with Ballet Sourakhata. In 2004 she went on to work with the Circus Baobab in Conakry and did so for 4 years. She then came to the US where she started teaching dance and performing. She joined Bramaya in 2024.

  • This is Mohamed, one of Bramaya’s djembe and doundoun players!

    Mohamed comes from a musical family of Griot. He started learning balafon and later Djembe and doundoun around 2017. He worked first with Ballet Fareta and later with Cirque Tinafan in Conakry, Guinea. He joined his uncle Aboubacar Sylla and his band Bramaya in 2024.

  • This is Brandon, one of Bramaya’s djembe players!

    Brandon Grant first started learning West African drumming in late 2009 at Youth Villages campus in Douglasville, Georgia. Under the tutelage of Youth Villages Drumming Instructor, Tom Harris, Brandon learned not only the basics of West African drumming but also how to teach drumming in a therapeutic context to youth with emotional/behavioral disorders such as the ones that live on the Youth Villages campus. Brandon graduated from Tom’s Therapeutic Drumming Instructor training, formerly served as the Drumming Instructor for residential facilities for youth in West Virginia and North Carolina, and had the pleasure of taking some of his youth to drum at locations such as the Pittsburgh Zoo and the National Re-Ed conference in Nashville, Tennessee. He has studied West African music with Aly Mendra Camara, Fode Lavia Camara, Mohamed DaCosta, Robin Leftwich, Bill Scheidt, Forrest Matthews, Allen Boyd, and most recently with Aboubacar Sylla @syllamusic, in Austin, TX. 

    Currently, he is a teaching artist/lead djembe facilitator for Lannaya Drum and Dance where he has participated in dozens of drum and dance interactive workshops within the Central Texas school system.

    Brandon joined Bramaya in 2018.

  • This is Liana, one of Bramaya’s dancers!

    Liana Hernandez is a singer and music lover living in Austin, TX. After singing in choirs and theater productions throughout grade school, she went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance from Wesleyan University. A class in West African Music and Culture naturally led her to take a drumming class with Ghanian master drummer Abraham Adzenyah. Once she realized that the drum calls communicated with dancers, she tried the dance class and fell in love. Since moving to Austin 7 years ago, she has studied and performed Afro-Cuban dance, West African dance and drumming with Lannaya, West African fusion dance and drumming with Afrique Gninze (led by master dancer Jean-Claude Lessou from Cote D’ivoire), and she was excited to join the vibrant group of musicians and dancers of Bramaya in 2023.