“When I first started to play djembe [an African drum], the brothers thought a sister shouldn’t play. It was just that women don’t play,” says Regina Perkins. “But I bought a drum and learned how to play it. . . . Then I started to street-perform. Finally the brothers had to give respect where respect was due. I could play, and they started to ask me to come along.”
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Regina Perkins can play a mean djembe, as well as the Mali drum known as the djun-jun. She is a master of the Yoruba bead-covered gourd called the shakere. I’ve seen her toss her shakere in the air, catch it, and keep playing, making the silence during the toss fit perfectly into the rhythm of the whole sequence.
She teaches now, both private students and in an after-school program called SAFE–“say no to drugs, say no to guns, say no to gangs,” says Perkins–at Saint Agatha’s elementary school in Lawndale. Kids in the SAFE program learn African dance, drumming, and choir.
