Darrell Rose is the consummate musician. Music is more than his mistress, it is his soulmate--a constant companion in whose company he has achieved a profound sense of serenity. As an individual, Darrell exudes a calm confidence which acts as a balm upon all who come into contact with him, instantly setting them at ease.
I first met Darrell in 1985, on a visit to Nashville, when my brother--then a graduate student at Vanderbilt University--took me to a concert by a trio which billed itself as Afrikan Dreamland. I had first encountered the "Blu-Reggae" of Afrikan Dreamland four years earlier, when my brother had sent me a copy of their initial release, Nineteen Eighty Oneness. Not only was it my first introduction to the sublime sound of Afrikan Dreamland--an exotic aural landscape, where the deep Southern fried slide guitar of Aashid Himmons sinuously snaked its way through the euphonious everglades known as the "percussions unlimited" of Darrell Rose and Mustafa Abdul-Aleen--but my first protracted exposure to reggae. The sounds which emanated from the ancient tape recorder--the cast-off mate of my third grade teacher's slide projector--were transcendental. Whenever I inserted the tape and pressed "play," I entered into a hauntingly hypnotizing soundscape, a veritable Afrikan Dreamland.
Afrikan Dreamland was far from a local phenomenon. They enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the South--regularly touring through Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas, Florida, and several extended tours on the West Coast. In 1982, they were the opening act for the international convocation of musicians at the "June 12th Disarmament Rally" at the Dag Hammerskjold Plaza of the United Nations headquarters in New York City. In 1984, their 12" single Ronnie Reggae received heavy airplay on college radio stations nationwide. In 1986, the video for the b-side to their single Apartheid, Television Dreams, even achieved "heavy rotation" status on MTV, albeit in the midnight to 6am slot. Shortly before they disbanded in 1987, The Reggae and African Beat--the nation's largest and most influential reggae-oriented magazine (whose editorial staff had hitherto displayed a marked distaste for the domestic strain of reggae)--had begun to document and celebrate their concerts and self-produced and self-distributed releases.
It was during this period of intense activity that I came to know Darrell Rose. I was a dj on WRVU--"Nashville's only alternative"--hosting "The Herbman Corner," spinning reggae and African records on Sunday afternoons. As a member of Afrikan Dreamland, Darrell was known around town as "the quiet one," whose personal presence--but never his musical virtuosity--was perennially overshadowed onstage by Aashid, the trio's 6'10" guitarist-lead vocalist-keyboardist-producer-manager. Darrell was the yin to Aashid's yang. Aashid was the consummate shamanistic showman--a self-styled "kosmik gypsy," capable of holding an audience captive through the sheer majesty of his towering presence. Their bandmate, Mustafa Abdul-Aleen, cut a dashing figure--the possessor of a well-defined and carefully honed flair for the dramatic, a legacy of his daylight profession--corporate law. Darrell was different--first, last, and foremost a musician, whose only non-musical activities revolved around his family.
Darrell Rose is a man of intense dignity, profound wisdom, and keen intelligence. His self-confidence is derived not from his phenomenal proficiency upon an impressive assortment of African hand percussion, but from the purity of his passion for music and the sincerity of his commitment to improving the lives of others through the exercise of his talents.
Darrell Rose: Let's see, this is nineteen eighty what--eighty-eight? I've been drumming for twenty one years. [laughs] Half my life...
It all started in 1972, when I was in the military, on a stopover in Haiti. When I returned stateside and was discharged, I bought a drum--a conga. At the time, I didn't know why I bought it--it was an utterly impulsive action. At first, it mostly decorated my room--you know what I mean? It mostly just stood there. Sometimes I played it--aimlessly, randomly--but mostly it stood silent, while the drums I had heard in Haiti reverberated in my mind.
GJR: Had you played an instrument before you visited Haiti?
DR: No [laughs]--uh-uh. Hadn't even thought about it. Late bloomer, I guess... [laughs]
That sense of rhythm, however--that haunting beat that's followed me through my life--I trace that to my maternal roots. My mother's family was from New Orleans, so while I was growing up, I was exposed to two very different traditions--Catholicism and the African Methodist Church. One of my maternal grandparents was a ballroom dancer, so you might say I was brought up surrounded by a certain subliminal sense of rhythm.
The household in which I was raised was filled with music. All my relations listened to the radio almost religiously. My first musical memories as a child are of the spellbinding voices of Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles, but we listened to everything--the entire African-American idiom, from Bobby Blue Bland to Aretha Franklin, and--of course--James Brown. Music was definitely a constant in my childhood, but it was the drum which was instrumental in bringing that dormant rhythm within me out. It enabled me to express everything which I had absorbed and experienced--consciously and unconsciously.
After I returned stateside, subliminally, I kept hearing the mesmerizing drums I had heard in Haiti. Those drums were surreal, beckoning, but to what or where I didn't then know.
GJR: What was the most indelible image of Haiti which haunted you?
DR: One day, as I was walking along a wharf, I experienced a man and a little boy, perched upon a dock--the little boy was playing a homemade conga while the old man danced to the beat. I can still see them silhouetted there, the ships passing serenely behind in the harbor. It was as if everything had suddenly begun to move in slow motion--everything but the beating of my heart in unison with the drum. To this day, I can still hear that drum, that rhythm. And I can still see that little boy playing his homemade conga--the drum was bigger than he was!
GJR: When did you first begin to transform the rhythms that resounded in your mind's ear into sound? What reawakened the dormant rhythms you spoke of earlier?
DR: I came to Nashville after I left the military to finish college at Tennessee State University. While I was a student there, a Nigerian drummer, named Bola Berou, was invited by the university to hold a workshop on campus. I decided that this was an ideal opportunity for me to learn how to bring the sounds I was constantly creating in my mind out. So, I took my drum and attended his first session. When I heard him speak--not solely with his tongue, but equally as eloquently with the drums--I knew that I had discovered my true calling.
By the time I finished taking classes at TSU, I had become an assistant to him--an apprentice, if you like. When I graduated, we began to work together as musicians, and we formed a group we called Afrika Phase Three.
GJR: So your work with Berou was your first formal training--prior to Afrika Phase Three you'd been entirely self-taught?
DR: That's right.
GJR: Did you specialize solely in African percussion, or did you play a regular trap set as well?
DR: Just congas, timbales, and a variety of small hand percussion. [laughs] I've never even tried to play a trap set. I'm sure the day will come--I've just never gotten around to it. I like to feel the skin under my fingers, against the palms of my hands. It's your sense of touch, not strength, that makes music. Music is very sensitive.
GJR: Was Afrika Phase Three solely a percussion ensemble?
DR: Yeah, the instrumentation was entirely percussive.
GJR: How long did you play with Berou and what kind of drumming did you perform? Afrika Phase Three is quite an evocative name.
DR: Afrika Phase Three lasted for two years. We played a variety of traditional Nigerian rhythms and idioms, which we also tried to fuse into a new idiom--a new understanding of the past as perceived by the present. That was the whole idea behind the name and the music. Africa was--and is--in its third stage. The colonization and exploitation of the last two centuries separates modern Africa from its proud and ancient past. It hasn't erased it--although that was the intent of its exploiters--but it sharpened divisions and created artificial barriers. That's why we spelled Africa with a "k"--it was an effort to reclaim that which had been taken from us.
I suppose you could analogize our use of the spelling "Afrika"--and later "Afrikan"--to the use of the word "nigger" by rap artists. [laughs] I guess you'd have to spell it "n-i-g-g-a," though, today. Returning to the point, its a form of semantic sparring--turning a negative into a positive. It's a means of destigmatization--that is, robbing the racist of his pet phrases and epithets. In many cultures, this type of semantic table-turning is used to strip the offending word of its power to hurt, to stigmatize.
GJR: So musically and symbolically, Afrika Phase Three was a celebration of the new dawning of Africa--its release from the chains of colonialism?
DR: Exactly. At the time we were performing--the mid-seventies--Africa was in a state of flux. It was experiencing excruciating growing pains after finally emerging from bondage, and though not completely free, was only beginning to deal with the legacy of that bondage--the animosities fostered by the arbitrary division of the continent into artificial states without regard to history, tradition, or linguistics. The fusion of various Nigerian idioms was an attempt to create unity out of the several distinct cultures which were artificially lumped together when international boundaries were arbitrarily imposed upon Africa by Europe.
GJR: Did you resume your formal training after Afrika Phase Three disbanded?
DR: No--at least not immediately afterward. About the time Berou resumed his travels as a teacher, I met and began to work with Mustafa Abdul-Aleen. Mustafa had just returned from Chicago, where he had been studying with Roscoe Mitchell. Through his travels and studies, Mustafa had developed a unique style, which merged traditional African idioms with mid-western improvisational jazz. He had a band called Media Arts Collective in which I played percussion with Mustafa from time to time, traveling with them from Memphis to Nashville, stopping at many, many points in between.
GJR: Does Mustafa's training as a flautist influence his drumming? I know that you've had training in traditional African, as well as Western, dance, and it seems to lend a certain rhythmic urgency to your solos? Do these sorts of studies deepen your understanding of your chosen instruments?
DR: Invariably, you're going to bring to your musicianship a host of influences. Now, I know you write a great deal, so I think you've intuitively grasped the concept at work here. If you're primarily a poet, any prose you write--no matter what the subject matter--is going to be enhanced by the inherent atunement to the language which makes you a poet in the first place. You don't consciously have to judge the sound and meter of the words, or force false alliteration--its your natural receptiveness and facility with words which makes you a poet in the first place. All of these factors, therefore, are going to make your prose more effective, more economical perhaps, or more picturesque. It's the same with music.
GJR: You've described yourself in the past as an American-born African and compared your musicianship as a form of communication with a lost ancestral heritage. How does one train as an African musician playing percussion in America?
DR: You get influences from your teachers, but in the end, you synthesize that training with what is inside you. I play the rhythms through what has influenced me--personally, historically, and culturally.
There are several African drummers, that have come to America in order to teach African-Americans one of the most important components of their culture--drumming--and I have been fortunate enough to study under some of them. These drummers are much more than just "teachers." They don't just teach their students the technical aspect of drumming, but the metaphysical aspect as well--the responsibility that is part of the sacred art of drumming. So, when you study under a master percussionist from Africa, you're learning much, much more than mere technique. The rhythms they impart become a part of your repertoire, while the metaphysical aspect--the reasons behind the rhythms--colors your whole spectrum of study. To me, teaching is the basis of performance.
There really aren't books per se explaining how to play African music because the music is so complex... I suppose you could try to write it, but no one would be able to read it--it's just not the same thing as experiencing it.
GJR: You can't capture life in writing.
DR: Exactly. I might say to myself, "well, I'm going to play a 4/4 rhythm," but I might play twelve variations on that 4/4 rhythm. I might play a 6/8, but I've got variations on that. See what I'm saying? You have to know how to hear. Now, somebody whose ear isn't trained, or if it's not an innate thing with them, they're only going to play a 6/8 one way.
African musicians experiment with the rhythm, playing around or behind it. That's why in African music, different rhythms have different titles and different names, as opposed to what their "number" is. It's a question of different spaces [Darrell quickly taps out a rhythm] and different parts [plays a variation on the rhythm]. I can play a rhythm for you [plays a complex multi-rhythm] and if you break the parts down, one hand plays one, two, three, [taps out a simple 3/3 rhythm] but you've also got the other hand playing [taps out a fast 6/8 rhythm]. So you've got one part going one, two, three, and another 6/8--then, you've got someone else playing 4/4 [taps out a 4/4 rhythm] and still another playing 5/6, and then the soloist, playing a variation of the four distinct rhythms. Well, you write that down for someone whose ear is not trained, and it's going to confuse him. But, when you play them all together, they lock up. That's when you get to the unknown and you start turning corners. As long as I've got that all clear [plays a short encapsulation of the rhythmic scheme he's outlined], I can go in any direction, and wind up right back here [returns to his original rhythm]. That's the sensibility that comes from unblocking your ears. The Western trained ear can't do that--they think that's not the right way because the theory doesn't say so.
GJR: It's as if you try to write down a tonal language, say one of the Bantu tongues. There might not be a large vocabulary, but each word has such a wide range of meaning and expression because of changes and fluctuations in tone.
DR: Exactly. After all, African music is a form of communication; it's a form of speech. If I try to write down the phrase e ja lo majo salam matu masolo ma, it wouldn't be spelled in any way understandable to a Westerner. But to get it over across to the English spelling, you have to do it phonetically with sounds, and there's just no way you can do that with musical notation.
GJR: Could you describe your evolution as a musician as you emerged from the shadow of your mentor?
DR: Well, to begin with, I didn't want to tie myself to any one group or band, because I felt that such a close identification with one music would limit my growth. I began working with musicians of all types, in an effort to expose myself to a wider range of musical experiences. My only criterion at the time was that I could achieve a state of harmony--both musically and mentally--with whomever I played. I played with a number of jazz quartets here in Nashville, and I even played with a rock band briefly.
Then, in '77, I just stopped playing. For nearly two years, I didn't even touch a drum. Musically and spiritually, I had lost my bearings. My entire life was permeated by a sense of unease, which stemmed from a lack of a spiritual center.
GJR: How did you finally locate your spiritual axis? Was it through your envisioning of Rastafari?
DR: Yes, Rastafarianism enabled me to find the center of spiritual gravity within myself. I had never felt at ease with either Catholicism or the African Methodist Church, and I had a heavy chip on my shoulder against Baptists. But this is all self-knowledge gained in retrospect. At the time, all I knew was that there was something missing--a spiritual need that was almost physical in its intensity.
It was a long, intense struggle, but once I had envisioned Jah, I understood myself, my roots--the entirety of the historical experience of Africans in America and my place and role within that experience. Even before I envisioned Rastafari, I had realized that I could never resign myself to the status quo in American society, but something within me had always prevented me from exploding into violent anger as a response to the status quo. I gained a deeper understanding of myself and my people during my search for my center, and I realized that through the drums I could make others of every conceivable background aware of the universal heritage we all share: African culture.
Around the time that all of this coalesced in my consciousness, I learnt that a master drummer--Mor Thiam, from Dakaar, Senegal--had taken residency in St Louis. I had some business to attend to in Missouri, so while I was there, I attended one of his classes. I'll never forget that day. There were twenty-five drummers there, and for three hours he led us. We drummed for three hours without stop, and at the end of the session, I felt as if I had fully returned to the center of my being.
About the same time I began to study with Mor, I was studying dance with Hahtab Cissoko, a master ballet instructor as well as a teacher of traditional African dance. So, I immersed myself in the world of rhythm through dancing and drumming. For a while I traveled back and forth to St Louis to study, while I supported myself by freelancing on my own, drumming and dancing at a variety of venues. I played a lot in Houston, still working with more or less a jazz quartet, as well as in St Louis, Memphis, and--of course--Nashville.
In May of 1980 I met Aashid [Himmons], and shortly thereafter, we began Afrikan Dreamland. I played percussion in Afrikan Dreamland along with Mustafa [Abdul-Aleen] for seven years.
In 1984, when the Trinidad National Drum Company came to Nashville, several of its members stayed at my house. I studied with those drummers. When I say I "studied," I mean that we traded rhythms back and forth--comparing the ways in which African rhythms had survived and changed under the pressures applied to Africans in the Americas. It was a transcendent experience, and it marked a full circle in my journey as a musician.
In a way, that was the spark behind everything that was to come. It wasn't long after my exposure to the Trinidadian drummers that I began The Afrikan Drum Festival, in 1985--February of '85. It began modestly, as the "Creative Rhythm Workshop" at Windows on the Cumberland, here in Nashville, as a series of solo performances in which I played the full range of African and Afro-Caribbean percussion. The public reaction was enthusiastic, as was that of fellow musicians--in particular Mustafa and [Tommy] Musa [Smith]. Soon other hand percussionists began to join in, and--as word spread and more and more people began to express an interest in hearing African rhythms, I began to build up a working ensemble, until it evolved into a working group--an open classroom.
GJR: Was this around the same time you started teaching?
DR: Yeah, I began the first drumming workshops in the spring of '85. I actually had begun to teach drumming in '82, but on a purely private basis, in individual lessons. Since 1982, I've had over one hundred students.
During the summer of '86, I met the master Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji in Asheville, North Carolina, and I was able to study with him for an extended period of time on two different occasions. The first time I met him, it was purely as a student, but during my second sojourn in Asheville, I served as director of his workshops. It was a great honor just to study under him, but to work with him was truly an uplifting and enlightening experience.
In 1987 I formed a group called World Music with Mustafa and Tommy Musa Smith. I've known Tommy since 1977, and we've been working together on and off ever since then--in fact, quite a lot lately. We performed together as World Music for about a year in Nashville at a few venues, carefully chosen for their acoustics. As you know, during the course of a World Music concert, we played everything and anything percussive--both traditional instruments and those we've devised and designed ourselves. It's an extension and enhancement of the "percussions unlimited" concept that Mustafa and I developed while we were part of Afrikan Dreamland. We've revived it sporadically over the last few years, but the energy they generate is quite different from that which the Afrikan Drum Festival produces. That's why I've chosen to concentrate my energies on the Afrikan Drum Festival, because they generate a momentum which a wider variety of people can harness and enjoy.
GJR: What kind of momentum? I was lucky enough to catch a few of the World Music ensemble's concerts, and in all honesty, I have to tell you that the fevered perfection of those performances were something I had never experienced before--the momentum, the energy was simply phenomenal--tangible, visceral. How does the momentum of the Afrikan Drum Festival differ from that of World Music?
DR: The Afrikan Drum Festival continue because the experience of the drums is part of everyone's culture. Now, in this particular instance we're talking about African culture, but--after all--African culture is the basis of all cultures. It was the first culture.
Drums and culture... Drums were the first instruments. They have, I guess you might say, a "metaphysical" aspect--to me, it is a magical aspect. It's the same thing, you see, because they are made of two life forms--the tree trunk and an animal's hide. The animal is considered dead, and yet its hide lives when it is used to cover the tree trunk. The combination of these two life forms allows you to produce sound, and that's life--energy being produced. And where does all energy ultimately come from? The unknown.
You can't just approach drums and drumming as a science, and deal with only the technical aspects of it. The true musician, doesn't merely produce a sound or a rhythm, but you have to take it a step further, and begin dealing with the searches the unknown in order to transmit to his community the universal energy which is the source of life. True music-making, therefore, is a process by which one surrenders himself to the unknown.
GJR: How do you prepare for such a journey? Do you play off the music and the crowd?
DR: Each time you sit down to play, you have an idea of what is going to happen--you know what rhythms you might play, but, what actually takes place during the performance... well--that's another thing entirely.
You have to understand that we share the experience. People come to hear and watch, but before the night is over, everyone is up and into the rhythm. It's not like going to a symphony or a concert hall where the stage puts a wall between the musicians and the audience. The Afrikan Drum Festival breaks down that wall and eliminates the distance between the performer and the listener. People don't just listen to the music at a drum festival, they experience it. They not only witness the musicians' surrender to the unknown forces of the universe, but they participate in it. The openness of the musicians allows them to open up to themselves and each other, and the energy harnessed by the drummers courses through them. That's the African cultural experience.
Drums accompany every and all aspects of daily life in traditional African communities. Music is such an integral part of life that it really can't be separated from it. That's why slaves defied the lash and even death in order to play drums when they were robbed from their native African soil. The slave owners knew the importance of the drums in the lives of Africans--that drums and rhythms formed part of the basis for their identity--and so they tried to eliminate the drum from the lives of their slaves in an attempt to dehumanize the Africans by making them forget their culture and way of life, their religions and their customs. So, with the Afrikan Drum Festival, we--the musicians--harness the universal energy through our exploration of the unknown and share it with the community which has assembled to receive that energy.
GJR: How pre-arranged are the concerts? The entire troupe works like an organic whole, a unity of parts. While the basic rhythm is very structured and layered, it's just the foundation. On top of this foundation, the drummers weave an intricate pattern of solos and improvisations, so spontaneous and alive that it could never have been orchestrated or practiced, and yet the end result is musical perfection.
DR: Exactly. It's a matter of instinct, because together the drummers are exploring the unknown. A drummer needs to be disciplined enough to know where he can go, but it takes an openness to the drum, the music, and the other musicians to reach into that unknown and come out with a unified rhythm. It goes back to the whole concept of music theory: practicing in search of perfection. It's easy to get hung up on rehearsing--and then you grow stale. You can't rehearse the unknown. Practice is necessary in order for a musician to learn the technical aspects of his or her chosen instrument and to develop an individual approach to that instrument. If you practice just in order to achieve one particular sound, however, you chain yourself to that sound or that particular method of playing and you will never be able to transcend that preprogrammed approach and reach the unknown--the true abode of music. On the other hand, your teachers can only teach you so much--they cannot bridge the immeasurable gap between learning and inspiration for you. Each individual musician must find his or her way to the unknown individually. To me, that's what practicing is all about--an individual excursion into the unknown. Only after the individual musician loses himself in the unknown and lets the power of the unknown flow through him, into his instrument, and back out into the universe, can he come together with other musicians to make music. Otherwise, its merely an exercise in technical proficiency--a sterile exercise devoid of any inspiration or creativity. That is the basic concept of the Afrikan Drum Festival--a unity of individuals who serve as a conduit through which the reinvigorating life force is brought to the community. Afrikan Dreamland, for example, only rehearsed as a unit when we had new material to learn. We didn't practice--we played. When we weren't performing together physically, we were playing together mentally, as we practiced individually. That's how we kept ourselves in shape, so to speak, concentrating on a common goal--a continual openness to the unknown, so that we could communicate that openness to the community.
I've been working with a constant core of musicians in the Afrikan Drum Festival context for quite some time now. Sometimes we might write down a format, sometimes we don't. When you work with someone for five, seven, or ten years you gain an intuitive knowledge of each other. That way, even without a format or a formal rehearsal, as soon as I call out a rhythm, we all know our musical destination, but the paths we take to reach it are ever-changing.
The whole concept of practicing goes back to what we were discussing earlier: the parallel between a poet's manipulation of his medium--language--and the musician's manipulation of his instrument. Its not a question of "learning" per se--you know, like you might learn mathematics or engineering. Its more a matter of refining something with which you've been naturally endowed. Technique isn't really something which can be taught in a formal sense--when it comes to musicianship, like writing, it's more a matter of honing that which already exists; learning how to extract it from within, as well as to act as a conduit to the unknown. Technique and discipline allows you to shape what's inside into something which can be experienced and comprehended by others; into something which touches others and fires their imaginations. That's the main problem with practicing, as far as I'm concerned. After all, if you can sit in a room for two hours and learn twenty to thirty songs, why do you have to come back the next day and play the same songs over and over, for hours on end? I mean, if you know them, you know them, and at any given moment you should be able to play them--its just that simple.
A lot of bands burn themselves out rehearsing the same old thing again, and again, and again. You lose spontaneity through overpractice, and your material becomes stale and hackneyed. That loss of spontaneity carries over into live performances, making them mechanistic, rather than organic. People want spontaneity, they need energy, and they crave creativity. They deserve an experience, not a repetitive routine.
Each time we perform a drum festival, we try to add something, so that each experience is a unique occurrence, always different than the last one. Only then can the unknown be explored. Each time a musician performs, he or she needs to take a chance, to turn a corner. Even though you don't know what's around that corner, the unknown forces you unleash lead you around that corner, allowing you to explore new energies and receive fresh inspirations. Spontaneity is the blood that flows in the veins of the true musician. Only an openness to change can keep you attuned to the energy of the universe, enabling you to grow, both as a musician and as an individual. That's the art. You have to use your heart so that at any given moment you can receive impulses which enable you to create sounds and rhythms which have never been heard before. The painter uses paint to do it, the sculptor clay; neither has to look into an art book. It should be the same with music. Once the technique is acquired, the rest comes from the heart.
GJR: I've heard the Cameroonian musician, Francis Bebey, say that playing a musical instrument is virtually a form of communication--if not communion--between the musician, his music, his instrument, and his people. What do you see as your role in bringing the music to audiences? What messages are you giving them?
DR: My role--or whatever you would call it--is to uplift, to bring forward and enhance the self-esteem of all who listen. It's a form of sharing. The energy is coming through me as a musician, and it transforms me. I become part of the music, and so does the audience, because the audience influences what the musician does, and is just as much as that process as the musician is himself. It's a unity of individual experiences. Whoever participates becomes part of it.
The musician is an artist. You can't separate the two. In the culture in which we live there has been an effort to make a distinction between art and music, but in reality, there is no separation. If someone is a painter, then his medium is the canvas. The musician's medium of art is his instrument, so what's the difference?
I play acoustic music, but I try to bring a certain electricity to that sound--a natural electricity, the lightning which illuminates our minds. Most people would say that this is an inherent contradiction, but the ability to bridge gaps between extremes is what I and the members of the Afrikan Drum Festival strive to do--both for ourselves and for the audience. Our goal is to bring to each individual the life force produced by the striking of a drum. That's what I mean when I speak of exploring the unknown. You can feel the electricity coursing through you; the forces of nature calling to humanity through the voices of the individual drums. This is the momentum which the Afrikan Drum Festival generates. The audience is acutely attuned to this--like the musicians themselves, they hear it and feel it. Like the musicians, each hears the same sounds, yet these sounds speak differently to each person. The drums, and the openness of the drummers, facilitate this.
To me, this is the most important aspect of musicianship. Most musicians in our society, however, have no conception of this crucial aspect of their craft. All you have to do is turn on a radio at random to discover that most musicians don't understand the real ramifications of the art of communication. Music is communication--it opens up channels between people. It's the musician's responsibility, therefore, to ensure that those vibrations are in harmony with the universe--that they bridge the artificial gaps society has created rather than widen them. When people listen to music, they surrender part of their psyches to the musician. Listening is not a passive activity--you not only surrender your ear to the musician's message, but your heart as well. If you listen to Miles Davis, for example, you can feel his spirit speak to your heart. His openness to the unknown can carry you there too, and your spirit will be joined with his. That's the power of music.
All this can be reduced to two simple words: cause and effect. A musician takes on a responsibility when he or she performs. Take heavy metal, for example. If you're a heavy metal singer, and you're music and lyrics are filled with negative energy, that's the type of energy you'll transmit to your audience. Now the audience--mostly teenagers in this instance--has surrendered to your energy, and as a result that negative energy will carry over into their daily lives. Music is not prejudiced--people are, but music is not. You know, musicians, no matter what their ethnic background, all have one thing in common--they have the power to influence the lives of others, because, that's what music does. It brings movement to whomever is listening to it, and it will change your perspective. Even if you're not attentive, you will still change your perspective under the influence of music. [laughs] Remember the Pied Piper of Hamlien? He's the perfect example of the point I'm trying to make.
It's a question of awareness--awareness of the power of music. Unfortunately, many musicians are either unaware or indifferent to the power which the energy we call music possesses. A good example of the power of music and its influence are violent incidents at concerts. Such incidents are a tangible manifestation of the negative energy being generated by irresponsible artists. There was a rap concert here in Nashville a couple of years ago, where a fan was killed in a stampede that broke out during the performance. Well, what were those artists rapping about to have had that kind of effect upon the audience? The audience was their responsibility--they had surrendered a certain part of their spirit to the performers' message, and because of the negative energy the performers transmitted, someone lost his life and several others were severely injured.
This responsibility is very important, especially since musicians become heroes to their fans. Not everybody can take an instrument and play it, so those who can are given a measure of respect. Whether they deserve that respect or not depends on the energy that they're imparting to their audience. The true musical artist realizes that this responsibility is his or hers and acts on it, by focusing on channeling positive vibrations in order to keep the cause and effect in order. Now, if the musician doesn't become aware of this cause and effect relationship between himself and his audience, the negative energy he puts out will come back to him and affect him. This cause and effect relationship--360ø, I call it--cannot be ignored. You begin to wonder as a musician, "why did those people get stampeded at my concert?" or "why is my life going so badly?" Well, the answer is quite simple: you put that negative energy out there, and they're listening to you and followed you, and this is the result--what they got out of listening to you. What you sow you shall reap, you know?
GJR: Where does the root of the musician's responsibility lie?
DR: The root of responsibility is to remain attuned to nature--what I call groundation. That is the mark of a true musician. Unless you are centered and attuned to the forces of the universe, your spiritual vision will be blinded by money, power, lust, or what-have-you. I don't know how many music schools teach this type of theory, but to me this is not a theory, but a reality. Most people will argue that a musician's only responsibility is to himself. Well, to a certain extent that's true, but only if you don't have an audience to play to. You can't play to yourself all day. If you make records, who are you making records for--yourself? That's not what the music is there for. The music talks, and you've got to have someone there in order to communicate. Music is for people. It's entirely give and take--the artist couldn't survive without someone listening to the music that he makes, and the life of whoever's listening to his music is enriched, improved, or changed by that music. The musician has a responsibility to each individual who listens to the musician and surrenders to his or her message--that is what music is all about.
GJR: One of the things that has always impressed me most about the Afrikan Drum Festivals is that at first the music, by its very nature, commands your respect and attention, and then all of the sudden...
DR: ...it's like everybody becomes friends. We always say that when we play there are no strangers amongst us. People break down those barriers which separate us from each other under the influence of the music. People come together and become friends at our concerts. Our concerts are somewhat like the idealized descriptions of revival meetings--where you go to shout and release all your frustrations; where negative energy is expunged and replaced with the positive affirming energy of love. The Afrikan Drum Festival is an opportunity for everyone to come together to dissolve the artificial boundaries which we all have been trained by our environments to recognize, and which are used to separate mankind. The energy which they generate allows all in attendance to let themselves become one--not only with the musicians, but with each other. When we play, there are no whites, blacks, or what-have-you amongst us--there are only people. Suited business men dance with tie-died hippies--the clothes people wear becomes as irrelevant as the color of one's skin, or the way you wear your hair--and that's exactly the way it is supposed to be. To me, that's where the musician's responsibility lies--to enable the people who come to share the energy of the music to share one another's energy. That's why if I had to describe the Afrikan Drum Festival in just one word, that word would be "love." That's the best way I can describe it. That encompasses everything. Love brings a challenge that becomes part of the process of casting off all artificiality. When one person tells another person "I love you," it opens that person up.
GJR: What then is the musician's responsibility to himself?
DR: Self-knowledge. That word--that concept--is very important to me. Now, you know I'm an African person born in America, but I'm still African. I've got to keep that in mind. If you're not a Native American--those are the true Americans--then you are of mixed heritage, and therefore, it's extremely easy for an individual to lose contact with his or her roots. It's that simple.
I believe that in order for individuals to respect themselves and others, it is crucial that they first understand their roots--their origins. This is particularly important, I believe for African-Americans, because so much of our history has been hidden from us. Knowledge--in particular, self-knowledge--is the key. Americans of French descent know about their culture and their history, both here and in Europe--why shouldn't I? Self-knowledge not only an essential component of self-confidence and self-pride, but of a greater understanding of the interrelatedness of all things. But first, you've got to discover who you are in a historical context. I need to learn everything and anything I possibly can about my own origins and the history of my ancestors in order for me to understand the situation in which I was born--as an African in America. Then--and only then--can I begin to understand other cultures. If I don't have any knowledge of my own culture, how can I possibly understand yours?
When I speak of being an African in America, however, I'm not trying to separate myself, but merely understand myself. This is an important distinction. The fact remains, however, that my ancestors were literally stripped of their culture by slavery. The fact remains that in this country, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, my ancestors were considered chattel. The fact remains that for another hundred years my ancestors were systematically deprived of opportunity, autonomy, the inalienable rights upon which this country prides itself, and--in all too many cases--their lives.
Only recently have the achievements of Africans in America begun to be recognized. Even now, however, the study of African-American history has become corrupted--trivialized and commercialized. Sadly, African-Americans themselves play a critical role in this diminution of their own historical and cultural legacy. Walk down any street in any city and what do you see? Malcolm X, transformed from an intellectual and moral force into a brand name--a fashion. Red, gold, black, and green are the colors of choice, but how many of those who wear them know what they really symbolize--why they are the predominant colors of the flags of Africa...
Self-knowledge, therefore, is the key to understanding. Lack of self-knowledge leads to uncertainty and self-doubt. Uncertainty and self-doubt leads to the perpetuation of ignorance. Ignorance leads to misunderstanding, and misunderstanding leads to hatred and violence.
What is the root of all evil? The root of all evil is greed. The inhuman institution of slavery, in all its horrid manifestations, is the progeny of greed. In every society, throughout history, greed has separated humans into two groups--the haves and the have-nots. The greed of the haves drives them to dehumanize the have-nots in order to justify the exploitation and subjugation of the have-nots. And the first step in the process of dehumanization is to deprive a people of their cultural awareness--their heritage. Once the dehumanization begins, the greed that fostered it fuels it, and so we have war, greed, racism, sexism, chauvinism--they all go hand in hand. One leads to the other, and all of them stem from greed--the disrupter of the natural harmony.
GJR: It all comes back to harmony--the universal harmony for which the true musician serves as a mirror in which that harmony is reflected.
DR: Precisely. What's the most perfect symbol of universal harmony? The circle--360ø. You can't be at harmony with yourself if you don't know who you are or where you come from. That's where music enters into the cosmic equation--it gives you a center, a groundation, by keeping you in touch with your past, so that you can truly grasp your present, and head confidently forward into the future.
Take any American musical idiom and trace it to its roots and you'll find that it stems from African music. The blues, jazz, reggae, R&B, soul, Latin and African-Caribbean rhythms--they reflect the various influences to which the original African cultures which were forcibly transported to the Americas were alternately suppressed, exploited, and exposed. They're products of that experience. That's why I consider music the key to self-knowledge. Music is African-American history.
Take reggae, for example, roots-rock reggae. The most prominent component of reggae is the drum and the bass. They provide a firm foundation upon which harmonies are constructed. By listening to the harmony, you absorb the uplifting, celebratory, and educational message of the musicians. The harmony is the message, and the message is the harmony--you can't separate the two. Now, reggae comes from African music--the recombination of the ancestral vibes which the descendants of slaves in Jamaica and in America fought valiantly and defiantly to preserve. Reggae is a product of cross-fertilization between African-American music and the rhythmic traditions which were preserved in the Caribbean. In Jamaica, the descendants of slaves held on to these ancestral rhythms, and they reinterpreted the African-American music they heard on the radio--in particular the children of the blues, R&B and soul--and incorporated it into their own rhythmic tradition. I don't know of any other form of music right now, other than maybe the blues, and some rap--which really is an offshoot of reggae--that is capable of combining a message so potently. The urgency of the rhythm and the beauty of the harmonies bring people together and open their ears--the gateway to their minds--to the vital message of truth, justice, and respect. Most people ignore this aspect of music altogether.
GJR: It's always amazed me that people find it odd that reggae and African music deal directly with reality--not only with the joys, sorrows, trials, tribulations, and triumphs of human existence, but with political and social issues.
DR: Exactly--they should really be surprised that most of the music they listen to is an apolitical collection of vacuous platitudes.
Now, there are two kinds of message music in the African-American tradition--on the one hand you have the spiritual/gospel tradition: there's a message in the music, but it deals exclusively with a utopia. It's praise and glory, full of promises of better times to come, but it doesn't talk about why or how--it just tells you, "pray to Jesus, and everything will be alright. Give your heart to God and nevermind your life on earth is a living hell--your eternal reward awaits you above." Now, the music is African in origin, but the philosophy was imposed on African-Americans by their masters in the days of slavery as a means of social control. With slavery, there's only two alternatives--to remain a slave or to try to escape, even if that entails risking death. You either have to make your heaven here on earth using love, justice, and equality as your tools or else remain a slave. So, certain Africans that were brought here fought for their freedom and died, but they died free--their spirits were free. While they fought, they were no longer slaves. Even if their bodies remained in bondage, the spirit was free. The rest lived in slavery, and as a result most of their off-spring have a slave attitude. It's like Jimmy Cliff says--they took the shackles off the body, but left the shackles on the mind. Unless you fight for the knowledge and culture which is rightfully yours, you remain a slave. See what I'm saying? By taking away our culture they tried to gain control of our minds. They gave us a white god, in order to reinforce the idea of caucasian superiority, yet how many of them would have accepted a black Jesus? How many of them today would accept a black God, or a female God, or a Godforce which transcends both ethnicity and gender?
GJR: Yet, in trying to rob one people of their culture, they're robbing themselves.
DR: Exactly. You got it. Western philosophy and theology imposes limits upon us all. It teaches you to grasp onto religion as an escape from daily reality. And its not only Western theology either--the same sort of escapism underlies Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism. Religion is within you--the spirit which people try to experience by attending church services doesn't just surface on Sundays, Saturdays, Fridays, or whatever your particular faith's holy day is. That spirit--the Godforce, or whatever you want to call it--is eternally within you. You can't seek it in someone else's doctrine or philosophy--if you do you'll never find inner peace. I can sit down with an instrument, however, and within five minutes, I've found an inner peace and bliss, and like as not, whoever's in the room with me has experience it as well. That's true spirituality and true musicianship. Performing music is a form of spiritual cleansing--a means of making people feel good about themselves.
Now, I've been talking about culture and spirituality, and I want to clarify my concept of their interrelation and their correlation to the drums. Drumming is an art; its not simply someone beating on a drum he just happens to own. People see a drum and they want to beat on it; they figure that's all a drummer does. A drum is a musical instrument, it doesn't merely keep time. It's the first musical product of the first culture. All cultures rely heavily on the drum, and all cultures have borrowed heavily from the root of all music--African music. They may not want to admit it, they may outright deny it, but when you look closely you'll see that African culture is the root of musical expression.
GJR: A good example of that can be found if you look closely at the development of American popular music during this century. Beginning with ragtime and the blues, jazz in all its forms, R&B and rock'n' roll. All of these musics began as African-American idioms, but were only accepted by whites as "acceptable" forms of music once the style was picked up and performed by whites. "Whitewashed," you might say.
DR: That's exactly right. Jazz is the most obvious example. Before Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra--an all white band--began to play jazz compositions written by Gershwin, jazz was the music of the ghettoes. Well, where did Gershwin get his rhythms from? People overlook these things, and yet it's obvious where it came from.
If you listen to some country music--like Bill Monroe's mandolin playing, for example--and then you listen to a record of kora music from West Africa, you'll find that it's basically the same thing. People need to appreciate this, so they can understand where the essence of whatever music they're listening to. Without understanding the origin of a music, you can't understand the music itself. As a whole, a lot of musicians don't give credit where credit is due. I'm speaking particularly of country music. Country music is the blues, and that must be dealt with. Now, there's politics involved here. Country music is African music, interpreted by caucasians through their experiences, yet it was taught to them by a black person by the name of De Ford Bailey. Some musicians do give proper credit to Bailey because he taught them. He was the first star at the Grand Old Opry, the first person to cut a record in Nashville--he did it for RCA. But for the most part, Bailey's influence has been either ignored or suppressed.
It's the same thing with rock'n'roll... I mean, where did Elvis Presley get his thing? This is all part of the spectrum I'm talking about. You must give credit to whom credit is due, whether that person is black, white, Indian, Chinese, Samoan, or whatever. This is where humility enters into the definition of a true musician. The humility to acknowledge not only your individual teachers, but those from whom the tradition in which you have immersed yourself descends is the mark of a true musician. Until you, as an individual, are able to acknowledge the roots of your musical style, you're not a true musician, no matter how technically adept you may have become upon your chosen instrument. Without this humility, its impossible for anyone to harness the energy inherent in the music which he or she is attempting to--to use a Western term--"master." You have to know where you come from to know where you are and where the music's going. The music has to have come from somewhere.
The drums speak a language--the attentive listener will discern the lyrical interplay of the drums. When one studies African drumming in its proper context, one learns that language and its correlation to the different chants and songs that accompany traditional rhythmic patterns. So, unless you are attuned to the origins of the music, any attempt to harness the energy inherent in that music will fail, no matter how technically adept you are upon your instrument, if you don't know where the music comes from.
I give credit to my teachers who have taught me African drumming, because they took me beyond the technical aspect of drumming. You see, that's where ego enters into it. Unless you can transcend the pride that comes with the technical mastery of an instrument, your skill and mastery become all important to you and you lose touch with the music itself. That's what has happened to Western music--the emphasis is on technique, the mechanics of making the music, and not on the energy inherent in the music. If you go to school to be formally trained in music, where is the emphasis? What's the first thing that's usually taught? Music theory. But music isn't theory, it is energy, it is a life force. I never had a music theory class in school. I went to one, but the teacher told me that Aretha Franklin couldn't sing, so I dropped out of the class. [laughs] I tried to get away from that approach--Westerners analyze music and try to put it into compartments. They don't listen.
GJR: The West is so caught up in exercising it's brain, that it forgets the heart, yet the heart must beat in order for the brain to function.
DR: Exactly. The heart--that's where the drums are. The heart is the abode of intuition--the openness to the unseen forces of the universe which surround us and shape us, but which go largely unacknowledged because they can't be seen, felt, or measured. Intuition is an essential component of musicianship. It's intuition that enables you to know something without questioning yourself. It's like our first impulse: it's usually right, but the brain has a way of distorting things. You go from the heart to the brain, and you make the wrong choice, and get confused. Intuition is that sixth sense we all have. Some of us either let it be removed, or simply don't want to deal with it, and so we turn to other people to answer our questions for us. Extend that parallel to the musician, and we get back to the unknown versus the practiced again. It's the same concept.
African culture, on the other hand, traditional African society has always dealt with the unknown. My little girl will come into a room, talking to no one. The Western way is to stop her from talking to this invisible somebody, because if you can't feel it or touch it, it's not there. But all that does is to remove your intuition and imagination. Now, African-American history is that one was brought as a slave by force to a place you didn't know anything about. You had to be prepared to deal with the unknown. You were going on an unknown journey to an unknown place. So you had to rely on intuition for your survival--you know what I'm saying? It's not like they knew what they were going to do the next day they had no idea. They knew they were going to get up, maybe get beaten, and work and work and work, but they didn't know what was planned for them by their masters, what was in store for them next.
Music has been removed from American culture, so that it's not part of our daily functioning. You know, we "pick a time" to sit down and listen to music, but you'll find in the Eastern tradition--India, China, and Africa--music is there all the time for all purposes, from the time you get up to the time you go to bed--at the birth of a baby, at a graduation or wedding, to welcome the new harvest, at funerals, even to broadcast the weather. Music is an integral part of whatever you do. So you are energized, and your day does not become drudgery, as our days in America so easily do. You come in from working nine to five--if you're even lucky enough to have a job--and you're too tired to even sit down. You have to get more energy to do anything else. But, if you're carried along by a flow all day long, you're never drained because your psyche is being constantly refueled.
I can begin to play drums with a headache, but after we get started it goes away. I can come in tired, and play, and all of the sudden I'm not tired anymore, but soothed. My little girl, she'll go to sleep to the sound of drums. They are very soothing because they speak to the heart. I was playing last night, and she went right to bed. She didn't want to go to bed, because she wanted to hear more drumming, as soon as she got in bed she was so relaxed that she just went right to sleep. I went right to sleep that night, too. [laughs]
GJR: What exactly is the healing power of music, specifically that of the drum, and how do you harness and disseminate it?
DR: The drum possess a healing power which is both physical and spiritual. The source of this power is the very structure of the drum itself. An African hand drum is a union of two life forces--an animal skin and a hardwood tree. [He taps out a brief rhythm] The drum is alive. This particular drum is a djembe from Senegal. I don't know how old the tree from which its body was carved, but I'm sure the tree is much older than I am--perhaps even a hundred years old. Now in many African traditions, trees are said to carry all the knowledge of the universe--their roots extend deep into the earth, while their branches touch the sky, so that they are in continual and constant contact with forces which are hidden from the eye of man. When you think of the organic knowledge that a tree has absorbed, you begin to realize that there's a considerable amount of power in a drum.
This power, however, can only be harnessed if the art of drumming is approached with humility. That is, the drummer must put aside all considerations of personal gain or self-glorification--the object of drumming in the African tradition is not to draw attention to yourself, but to the lifeforce. In order to produce a healing rhythm, therefore, the drummer must serve as an intermediary between the unknown and the community. The drummer opens himself to the unknown and becomes a lightning rod through which the lifeforce--the spiritual energy which permeates the universe--enters the skin and the wood of the drum through his hands to produce a healing rhythm.
I firmly believe in this concept because I've experienced it firsthand. I've been a conduit for the healing rhythm of the drums. Several years ago, before my daughter, Idia, was born, her mother worked for what was euphemistically called a "mercy home for the retarded"--an institution for children with severe brain damage. These children ranged in age from teenagers to toddlers--the youngest ones were three years old. I played for them on a number of occasions, both individually and with an ensemble. The first time I played for them, however, it was as a solo artist, and it was upon that occasion that I first truly felt the Most High--the Godforce--course through me and realized the responsibility that had been bestowed upon me as an African percussionist.
It was on Hallowe'en night that I first played for them--I remember that day in 1984 as vividly as if it were yesterday. The children had gathered around a bonfire in a circle--most of them in wheelchairs. The healing that took place that night was indescribable. The director of the institution wrote me to express his amazement at the magical aura that the drumming and those children's receptiveness created. In his letter, he told me that that night around the bonfire was the first time that many of those children had responded to external stimuli. Many of them had failed to respond to sound or movement in a clinical setting and so had been written off as incapable of responsive cognitive functioning. In addition, many of them were not fully functional physically--either partially immobilized or incapable of coordinated movement. But on that evening, they moved and sang, swayed rhythmically, and responded in whatever way they could. All their lives they had been bound to a wheelchair and a bed, but the energy which coursed through the drums allowed them to transcend their physical limitations.
I've also brought drum ensembles to nursing homes for the elderly. The first time I played for the elderly in North Carolina was another unforgettable experience where healing occurred. There was one lady there who had had a stroke which had left her blind in one eye and forced her to use a walker. One of the nurses at the facility later told me that her infirmities had left her bitter, sullen, and deeply depressed--so much so that she resisted any sort of physical therapy. They had tried to convince her to attend the performance in the auditorium where I and another drummer--one of my students--were playing, but she had adamantly refused. Now, I didn't know any of this at the time, and we had been playing for quite some time when all of the sudden I heard someone yell, "Hallelujah, Holy Jesus!" She had come into the auditorium, kicked the walker aside, and begun to dance! I had seen another lady enter into the auditorium with a cane--when I turned around to see what the commotion was, the cane was in the air, and the lady was dancing down the aisle. Others were rocking back and forth in their wheelchairs--some of them clapping, some of them crying. One of them compared it to being reborn as himself.
To me, that's what drumming is all about--healing and rejuvenating. The drums can energize you or soothe you--it all depends on what your body needs. And that's what African hand drums are supposed to do--interact with your body and infuse it with the lifeforce you need.
GJR: I think that's one of the most difficult things for many people, especially casual listeners, to accept.
DR: The African hand percussionist deals with love, the unknown, metaphysics, and laughter; they are all part of this process. He seeks to heal and to unify; to create harmony from disharmony and solidarity from discord. I've been told that there aren't many places in the United States were African drumming is performed, but you've got to take this concept to all the people--black and white, Asian and Native American. That's why the Afrikan Drum Festival has worked so extensively in Nashville and throughout the South. When you really look at Nashville and its musical heritage as a haven for R&B and soul during the fifties, for example--you have to look beyond the Grand Ole Opry and Music Row. Nashville is--as its promoters say--"Music City," but the country music scene has overshadowed this city. It runs a lot of artists--especially a lot of black musicians--out of here to go to elsewhere--somewhere like L.A., where they can do their own thing. But as for myself, I feel that it is part of my responsibility as a musician to bring the energy of the hand drum to places where it might not otherwise be heard. Do you see what I mean? My responsibility as a musician overrides any desire I might have to go to where drumming is a better paying commodity, because to me drumming has to do with culture and awareness, not money.
I've chosen to pursue the Afrikan Drum Festival and pure drumming full time, because I feel that I have a responsibility not only to myself, but to the music and the community, as both a performer and a teacher. People tell me all the time that they appreciate that despite its success, the drum festivals continue to return on a regular basis to the venues where it began--mostly small clubs. This has been a conscious effort on our part, for just as we impart the energy of the unknown to the audience and rejuvenate them, so too do they rejuvenate us, by participating intimately in the entire process. That's why I've tried to keep close links to the people and places where the Afrikan Drum Festival germinated. Its a way of keeping myself and my fellow musicians centered, by preserving the sense of community that the drum festivals have fostered. In this business, you know, it's hard to keep the same gigs for two years in a row, but we're able to play a club once or twice a month on a regular basis. That says a lot for the artists, I've been told, but it says much more about the community and the power of the music. If you are a true African percussionist, playing is a humbling though uplifting--experience. It's the people who give you energy when you play--the music channels through you to them, and therefore you have a responsibility to help them achieve the same sense of balance through the healing rhythms of the drums.
We are all here for different purposes--to do certain things--and, for some reason, I have been endowed with the ability to play the drum. It's what keeps me balanced and centered--it's what makes me me. Ultimately, it's a matter of respecting that energy--as a drummer and a musician--and knowing what a blessing it is that this gift has been bestowed on you. Only then can you know how to use it and share it--not as a tool, for personal gain, but as a means of propagating positive energy.
GJR: It's brought us back to the drummer's responsibility again...
DR: Exactly--360 degrees...
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