Drum Shop Sounds the Notes of Culture

Ghanaian drummer Kwashi Amevuvor remembered a strange feeling coming over him while teaching an African culture class in Cologne, Germany, 14 years ago.

“I felt sick, like I was giving away our people’s history,” said Amevuvor. “That’s when I knew I had to bring the education back home. It is time for this generation to know the truth about Africa.”

Last month, Amevuvor opened Adonu International Music Center, a drum and African instrument shop in Baldwin Hills that also serves as a cultural center for black Americans he believes are woefully disconnected from their roots. Amevuvor gives lessons in what he deems the single most important form of communication in the history of the African diaspora: the drum.

“The drum is a language,” said Amevuvor, a 40ish man who typically dresses in the richly colored kente garb of West Africa. “It carried messages from village to village. For centuries, it has been radio and TV between peoples of different languages and cultures all over the continent.”

Nearly every inch of Adonu’s walls are hung with drums and other percussive instruments, and taller ones are carefully arranged on the floor. Amevuvor pointed out the different names and functions of drums from throughout Africa, including the countries of Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. Among the drums were donno (talking drum), sogo (used exclusively by the Ewe tribe of Ghana to aid in freeing slaves) and drums used for ceremonies such as blessing a harvest or greeting a king.

“The African tradition is oral, so this rap music is nothing new,” said Amevuvor. “You cannot write it down. It’s spontaneous language, with different rhythms every second. The old stuff has come back.”

Amevuvor, whose nickname, “Kwashi,” loosely translates into “master drummer,” has taught African studies and music since 1970 at colleges and schools in 54 countries, including the University of Ghana and the State University of New York system. He has also performed with African musical groups--his current one is called Sankofa--that toured internationally in the 1970s.

Amevuvor, who settled in Los Angeles as a free-lance music teacher 11 years ago, said he was strolling through the African Marketplace in the Crenshaw area last summer when he came upon a man selling drums.

“When I told him his drums were out of tune, he didn’t even know what I meant,” said Amevuvor. “He knew nothing about the drums. I got very angry--he was just selling for a profit, not caring about the history.”

The man, Dan Rice, coaxed him to tune a few drums for a fee; Amevuvor stayed and wound up selling several that day. The two men formed a business partnership that wed Rice’s goods and financial backing with Amevuvor’s know-how, and the store was born. Amevuvor decided to christen it Adonu, his formal first name.

Amevuvor said he was quick to suggest the location on Santa Rosalia Drive in the Crenshaw district. “It could have been Melrose or Beverly Hills, but I was interested in teaching culture where it’s needed,” he said.

He said cultural awareness is needed in the African-American community, which he says suffers internal problems such as gangs because “black people are not cleaning house.”

“We must invest in ourselves,” he said. “Learning the drum, like ballet, is learning discipline, respect, how to listen. We need that.”

Designer and artist Ron Mineo said Amevuvor “changed my life” with drum and dance lessons at a class five years ago.

“He knows exactly how you should move to the drums,” said Mineo, who plans to take drum lessons at Adonu. “He and the drummers he brought have all the right rhythms and subtleties. He feels and understands the music like nobody else. His new place should be a national treasure.”

Though Adonu is open for business six days a week, Amevuvor is at the store every day, often rehearsing his band after hours.

“My own two drums are my wives,” he said. “I like to be around them. They talk to you. Break them, and you kill me.”