The sound could barely be heard at first as uneasy students sat on the edge of the stage by the De Anza Campus Center, while one man beating a large drum slung around his shoulder cheered the students into trying it out.
After students shared wide grins from the initial nervous tension, it quickly broke into the unison of a rhythm, simple beats catching up in speed and stopping suddenly on signal.
At the peak of the hour and a half of this event, more than 20 students carried the beat with the action of their palms striking the hide drum skins. They were all taking part in recreating a very old pastime of a very old culture, in the spirit of not just Black History Month, yet a general spirit that could be seen any day in the right place.
Students walking around campus and by the staged area stopped to either watch the actions of their fellow students, or to be cheered on by friends into joining them on stage.
Even the main coordinator, McTate Stroman II, co-advisor of the Black Student Union, played drums alongside the students and said spoken word poetry over a microphone to the constant drum pattern. He’s often had drum circles at an event he frequently coordinates with other members of the BSU. “We started doing the drum circle at the end of First Thursdays,” which takes place at the Euphrat, he said.
What made this drum circle really lively was not only the energy of the students, but the friend and mentor Strohman brought to the campus, Chazz Ross, a man who was spent much of his life learning how to play drums under teachers such as Louis Conte, Javuzi, and Carl Lott Jr. He uses the knowledge they passed on to travel around California and encourage the youth with drums.
Ross said, “I’ve had autistic children talk to me when they’ve talked to no one before.”
The drums could be heard far across the campus at the height of the event, and all the students who took part in it walked away with a smile. A small measure of unity was shared between them all on that day.
ProfesSional in the circle – McTate Stroman ll joins in with the students. (Greg Anderson, Multimedia Editor.)
