Filimbi

Description

Instrument type
Area
Ethnicity

A whistle.

 

The word filimbi is Swahili for ‘Whistle’, ‘flute’ or ‘pipe’. – so the instrument name ‘Filimbi’ could refer to any whistle or flute type instrument.

We heard this Filimbi in use by a member of the group Zaire Ndindingwara on our field trip to record the music of the Mijikenda in 2011, played alongside percussion – as a bed for the vocalist in the group.