Drummer brings community together
Heart and Soul Drum Academy teaches at the last school it can during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Pete Collova | Reporter
The administrator flicks off the lights. The director shouts the count off and the groove emerges from the darkness making every bone in the chest vibrate with more vitality than the heart. With no distractions, all that matters is the rhythm and feel of the beat of the drums. Voices join in and all the parts weave together to make one song. A strong flam hit together ends the song and the lights come back on.
The students at Friendship Academy of the Arts in Minneapolis are the only remaining ones to be receiving drum lessons from Baba Jesse Buckner, founder and teacher of Heart and Soul Drum Academy. Every other teaching opportunity available to him has been shut down by the pandemic, including a 10-day trip to Botswana.
“If I couldn’t come to school and work with these kids I would be in misery,” Baba Jesse said.
As elementary schools shift to online learning, human interaction is reduced to a face on a screen, hampered by a poor internet connection. Friendship Academy stays in-person despite the pandemic and its students who are able to be in class find therapy and community in drumming, Baba Jesse said. The charter school brings in six artists to teach its students, but Baba Jesse is the only one who arrives in-person to teach his craft.
He never knows how many kids will show up each day. The first 15 minutes of class are spent rearranging the room to fit a new seat and drum into the ensemble for every scholar who walks in the door. Almost all of his first string of drummers have been lost at some point to quarantine, but he still teaches a class for an hour every school day. Mostly girls have been stepping up to fill the empty spots as the class barely hangs on to the few boys who remain, he said.
The motivation behind Baba Jesse’s teaching is to fill a need in his community.
“Someone has got to push them to the edge,” Baba Jesse said. “They can do all things, but they have to try something first.”
While he is teaching them to play the drums and make music he has the chance to give them more. His true goals are to instill discipline, leadership and respect. Drumming serves his goals as these traits are necessary for an ensemble to play successfully together. Each student must learn their own part and stay focused to play it correctly so that it can come together to make polyrhythms with the other parts.
“We are all playing different but we are together,” said Sofia, a student at Friendship Academy.
Ideally, Baba Jesse would be able to send every student home with a Djembe (see graphic above) to enhance their educations but there is not enough money. Instead, he has to give them five-gallon buckets from Sherwin Williams for practicing.
Baba Jesse’s own childhood saw similar restrictions from poverty. When his mother had the choice to buy a piano or a TV in North Minneapolis, there was no decision. Every night before dinner she sternly made the whole family stand around the piano and sing tunes like “All God’s Children” — even when they had the treats of hot dogs with chili and Orange Crush soda waiting on the table instead of the usual pot of beans with bread. Baba Jesse filled his childhood boredom by beating the table with forks and spoons to make a groove until his auntie bought him a drum set.
“Pass on what I put in your system,” is what Baba Jesse’s mother told him. She wasn’t just talking about the music.
Family has been an anchor for Buckner his whole life. He has seven sons, all of whom are drummers. They grew up playing in a drum circle together, no one left out. When Buckner plays a show with them, he will say, “I’m tired, you lead,” and a son will take over with his own personality.
“Their drum circle energy is amazing,” said Benita Buckner, who married Baba Jesse in 2015 and became involved in Heart and Soul as executive director in 2016. “Drumming is a thing that pulls people together. Music breaks down barriers and you become more relatable to other people.”
When Heart and Soul performs in public places — such asl the Minnesota State Fair — there will be stoic-looking people with their hands crossed and tension in their shoulders. But within three to five minutes of drumming, they start to move to the beat, Babe Jesse said.
“You can literally see the release,” Buckner said.
“It doesn’t matter your color, it doesn’t matter your size, it doesn’t matter your gender. If you have a heartbeat, you have rhythm. Forget about that stuff. Forget about racism. Come together peacefully.” — Baba Jesse Buckner, founder of Heart and Soul Drum Academy
Heart and Soul Academy doesn’t discriminate. It teaches and plays to bring the entire community together.
“It doesn’t matter your color, it doesn’t matter your size, it doesn’t matter your gender. If you have a heartbeat, you have rhythm. Forget about that stuff. Forget about racism. Come together peacefully,” Baba Jesse says.
