So I started looking for someone to mentor me.  My father was my first music mentor when I was young.  He was a medicine man by trade but he also taught me to play the drum.  The most important part of what he taught me was how to watch and listen.  This is how African children learn to play, learn to absorb things quickly, and learn respect.  But at 15, I needed someone to introduce me to the world of music.   Being the stubborn teen that I was, I didn’t stick with my first mentor for long. Though he was a good musician and teacher, I didn’t like his style when it came to the “business” of music. Then I found Joe Kelly Odamptan.  He was a mentor to a lot of us young, want-to-be-musicians.  Through him our ears were trained to hear…all music, good music like classical, mambo, and swing.  In Africa, music was not like in the States.  We did not have Black music at first.  We only had French. I longed to hear that rhythmic American music.  Joe Kelly made sure I got it.  Not only did he teach me about Black music, he taught me about Black American movies as well.  Stormy Weather was my first.  It opened my eyes to a whole new world as an African.  While African Americans were being kept from knowing about us, we were also being kept from knowing them.  Joe made sure those barriers were removed.  “You can play any music,” he would say.

When we are young, we do not understand the power and influence mentors have on our adult lives.  I understood it, even when I was being obstinate.  Most teens get that way at some point, but I didn’t let it stop me from reaching my goals.  Joe Kelly, my father, and other mentors were the key.  They helped me to sustain my music career.  Some of the other young musicians who played with me did not stay with it.  They did not value what we learned such as loving all music, memorizing things so you don’t forget them, and keeping good things in your mind.  In African culture, we learn how to put things into proverbs.  When we do, we don’t forget it.  It’s like putting words into song, and young people have no problem with memorizing the words of a good song.

Over the years I have mentored musicians and dancers all over the world.  When you receive what I did from my mentors as a teen, it’s only natural that you pay it back to others.  The proverb is true: it does take a village to raise a child.