The djembe is the drum of the "Mali empire" founded by Sunjata Keita in the early thirteenth century, whose people are known most commonly as Malinke (literally: man from Mali) but also as "Mande, Mandinka, Maninka, Manding, Mandingo, and Mandin". The core of this empire was located between Kankan (in present day Guinea) and Bamako (in present day Mali) on the Niger river, but in its entirety the empire also included parts of the present day countries of Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and Gambia. The empire began basically as a federation of smaller states, whereby many different peoples pledged allegiance to the central ruler.
The spread of the Manden people The empire collapsed after about 300 years when many of the states claimed independence, leaving basically only the central Malinke people on the banks of the Niger (and surrounding highlands) between Kankan and Bamako.