Spencer’s Spectacular Drumming Spices Up The Atupa Stage Production

By Michael Kolawole

Spencer Richard Momoh’s Djembe drum is the heartbeat of the Atupa (The Spotlight) Festival held at CAST Waterdale, Doncaster, UK.

Efficiently playing the drum, he helps breathe life into the various performances at the production, using his drum to support the music and stories being told by the saxophonist, Olaniyan Olamide, and the singers, Eyinju Eledumare and Eledumare’s Masterpiece.

During Eledumare’s Masterpiece’s impressive rendition of Sola Allyson’s exemplary homage to womanhood, “Obinrin”, Spencer keeps his drum soft and simple to match the song’s spirited rhythm.

When Eledumare’s Masterpiece eulogises womanhood, singing that birth and nurturing are impossible without a woman, and the absence of a mother in a child’s life is often detrimental to the child’s growth, Spencer reduces the intensity of his drum to let the audience grasp the song’s messages.

But Spencer increases the drum’s tempo to match the singer’s bragging lyrics and demeanour about her womanhood as she struts on the stage, singing “Mi ki se a tẹ mẹrẹ, mi ki se a tẹ mẹrẹ (I am not a cheap, worthless, or easily discarded commodity).” With Spencer’s drumming competency, the singer delivers a revitalising version of “Obìnrin”, giving a fresh spin to Sola Allyson’s classic grace on womanhood and motherhood.

As his practice, Spencer delivers impressively on the drum during Olaniyan Olamide’s saxophone rendition of “Ikoko Akufọ (Lamentation For The Broken Pot)”, originally sung by Beautiful Nubia (and the ROOTS RENAISSANCE BAND), as the theme song for the 2006 film Narrow Path, directed by Tunde Kelani.

While Olamide hits the high notes, and later bell notes, Spencer heightens and lowers the tempo of his drum to express the song’s gloomy message about the protagonist’s loss of virginity and dignity, after being defiled the night before her wedding. The saxophonist Olaniyan Olamide cleverly plays the horn to keep Spencer’s drumming interpretation in line with the original song.

For his third performance at the festival, Spencer plays the keyboard to show his versatility and competence as an instrumentalist. Handling the keyboard while Eyinju Eledumare performs an array of reggae songs, Spencer’s piano vamps are the quintessence of the music and are also syncopated with the drums. This actually brought a reggae vibe into the room, making the audience sway to the rhythm.

Despite all his evident skill, Spencer’s drumming sometimes overreaches in his supporting roles. During the elevated, more groovy passage, especially in the meditative stretches where Olaniyan Olamide sings and plays the Sẹkẹrẹ (beaded gourd), Spencer’s Djembe asserts itself with a presence that competes, rather than complements the singing.

Spencer, unfortunately, employs similar techniques for his drumming assistant on Eyinju Eledumare’s freeform performance. His keyboard support, though impressively ambitious, shows that versatility can be frailty if pushed too much. The reggae-inflected vamps and cycling motifs he employs are rhythmically compelling as standalone elements, but they introduce a distinct tonal personality that makes the production lose coherence.

Spencer Richard Momoh is, without question, an instrumentalist of rare intuition and awesome command on his chosen musical instruments. His performances are enjoyable, though the bits and pieces don’t fit as smoothly into the sets of the Saxophonist and the artists he plays for.