“He realized, ‘This kid is having fun with this. I cannot put his parents in jail.’”

I first met Yamoussa at Union Project, while helping him carry two dozen handmade African drums for a workshop for people with intellectual disabilities. To watch his interaction with them was to witness love in action. I knew I wanted to paint his portrait.

Months later, feeling something was missing in my painting, I met with him again. He explained that the rhythm he was playing when we first met was traditionally used in times of war to warn distant villages of enemies. Music as an invisible message—I was fascinated.

During an interview years later, he revealed that as a child he had to hide his drumming from his mother. There it was again: the theme of invisibility.

I’m so glad Yamoussa persisted with drumming, and eventually gained his mother’s support. Anyone who spends time with him feels blessed, and knows, as he knows, that drumming is what he was born to do.

 

Jeffrey Dorsey

Hey, how are you? I’m so glad you’re looking at my picture. That’s me. I hope you love it. The man in there in that picture is the same man you’re talking to right now. And he’s always gonna be the same man. I can’t change. That picture is gonna be the same and I’m gonna be always the same as that picture.

I love music all my life, and I was sad. I had to hide myself to go play as a little boy. When I was like five and my mother don’t want me to drum, my father won’t let me drum, and they want me to go to school. I have to hide myself, go place to play without my parents know. I go to school for half day and go hide there half day to becoming professional drummers. Til I was seven, old enough to speak to my mother, let her understand this is what I really want to do. And she’s like, “Okay, you wanna go to school for that?” I said yes. And they put me in school for that.

When I was in Africa, I just play for fun. In revolution time, we was forced to play for our country. And the first president of my country, it was obligation to play. If you don’t play, they will take your parents to jail. So we was forced to play. Until he realized, “So this kid having fun with this, I cannot put their parents in jail.” So his own wife organizes her own company. So I was a part of that.

I was so good at it, singing and playing the drum. So they sending me to the first national company in Africa called Ballet African. And when I was fifteen, I started traveling with that big company and all over the place. One day we ended up in China. I travel all over the world and ended up in United States with these drums.

My name is Yamoussa Camara. I’m from Guinea, West Africa, and guess what? That picture is me. It look like I’m standing there thinking about what I want to play. I’m thinking like, what should I play now? Yeah. but it’s beautiful though. I love it. I’m so glad you looking at it.

The one between those two drums, you know, my hand is like this and it is a drum in between, that’s called bougarabou. It’s from Senegal in West Africa. And a hundred years ago, they was making it as a telephone because before the telephone that was there, they used to communicate with that in Senegal. They can call between villages with that drum and the response will come. Like, if somebody die in this town, they will announce that sadness from that drum, the one in the middle right there, the one with a string in it. It’s called bougarabou.

And the one in my left hand that’s djimbe. And that’s used to let military to know where’s the enemy coming from. But you have to speak the language to understand what they say. I can call your name in that djimbe by playing your name. If you speak language, you would automatically turn around and look at me. And that djimbe was telling the military, this is left side, that’s where the enemy coming from, or right side, that’s where enemy’s coming from. That’s djimbe.

The big one, the big dundun, that used to be for the village. When the king have a meeting, they played it three time. Boom. And wait for three minutes. Boom. Wait for three minutes, boom. The third time, that’s it. Everybody will come and the king will tell people what’s going on, what’s the news, what really going on. And everybody will understand.