Drum Rider: A Tribute To Bi Kidude (Excerpts)
Bi Kidude is a 90-year-old Zanzibari virtuoso of East African coastal
music and drumming.

I.

The woman planted a drum on the grass before her.
Twisted a soft worn khanga round her hips.
As if she was going to wash clothes, chop vegetables;
hike a child to her back to go to market.
None of us really paid any attention.

The woman harnessed her hips to the drum.
Chest-high, foot-in-diameter msondo drum.
Placed it aslant between her straddled legs.
Settled into position.
Sunken chest erect.
Shoulders, neck, at the ready.
Mouth set over gaping gums.
Khanga hiked up skinny strong legs.
Feet grounded in the earth
like it was time
to do business.
Like she was going
to work.

II.

I have never seen a woman ride a drum before
like a goddess rides a tiger
like creation rides the cosmos.
I have never seen a woman ride a drum like this.
I have never seen an artist
male or female
anywhere across the globe
own her instrument like
it grew out of her belly, like
it was welded to her thighs.

V.

I believe in Bi Kidude
the way I don't believe in god.

But if god were a ninety-year old, ebony black
Swahili woman,
with a mouth full of broken and missing teeth
hands veined like banyan trees
a drum between her legs

…if god flaunted her struggles like a velvet cape,
rearranged the atoms of the world
with the rhythm of her gut

then maybe I would believe
in that god.

That god
who is only a name
for the genius in all of us….

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