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The Commandments of R&B Drumming is a historical and in-depth study of R&B drumming, from soul to funk to hip-hop, written by world-renowned session & live drummer Zoro (Lenny Kravitz, Bobby Brown, Sean Lennon). Topics include practice tips, developing the funky bass drum and hi-hat, creating and playing with loops, and what are considered the Ten Commandments of Soul, Funk, and Hip-Hop (the top ten recordings from each era).

If you want to learn about R&B drumming, or even R&B in general, Zoro is an excellent teacher. He takes the viewer through the history and evolution of the genre, introduces the notable artists, and demonstrates the key drumming styles. Interviewer Russ Miller does a good job in discussing the subject and engages Zoro in a relaxed, conversational style. The video is also a great companion to Zoro's excellent book of the same title.
Delivering a historical backdrop of R&B that rivals any previoulsy published, the book is perhaps a little short on performance exercises it more than makes up for it with an indepth look at stylistic differences that occured over time in the genre and gives a representaion of development and progress through the 20th and into the 21st century. Again more quantity of different grooves for comparison and practice purposes. Otherwise Z could have easily turned the book and accompanying DVD in as an ethnomusicological grad project and probably recieved an honorary doctorate.
Zoro has an incredible hold on R&B/Soul/Funk/Hip Hop drumming. This DVD is quite useful as it allows one to actually study his playing as opposed to short examples of a point.

DVD9 | VOB | NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | MPEG2, 29.970 fps, 4759 Kbps | English: AC3, 224 Kbps , 48.0 KHz, 2 channels | 3 hours |

nJoy!