In this video, Jatta, a native of Gambia, is playing an akonting.  After a trip to the US in the 70s, Jatta discovered the banjo, immediately finding similarities between the two instruments. For many years now he has been performing extensive research about the banjo. Over the years, many researchers have found several different instruments to be the prototype of the banjo, but Jatta became convinced that the akonting is the closest one yet. Not only are they both built similarly, he also discovered that they are played the exact same way with the same fingers.  A pretty interesting discovery!