With two drumming sticks in hand, local artist and musician Randy Chollette plays on the hollow pieces of his perfectly carved Cayman mahogany wood drum — an instrument that, for Chollette, is his most special creation to date and one that hits close to the heart of his beloved isle.
“This came from a tree that a lot of people used to hang out under, a gathering space for community so to speak,” Chollette told the Cayman Compass.
“This was in George Town. Certain authorities didn’t want the youth hanging there so they cut down the tree to ‘spite their face’. So, one of the young men who used to sit there and ‘reason’ about life, went there and took a piece of the trunk.”
That trunk was passed on to Chollette.
“Now it has become a drum to continue the ‘sound’ power that had reverberated around it when it was a living tree. Imagine all that this tree heard and experienced of these young people,” Chollette said.
He started making log drums for the love of their history.
“I was going through a book about a musician who journeys through the world looking for new sounds and new instruments, and that is where I first heard about the drums. Then I started my own search and found a lot of the same type of drum all over the world, just a different name and slightly different techniques in terms of making them,” he said.
“So, I decided to make my own because I love the sound, and history shows they are some of the oldest drums in the world. My work is also about reconnecting with our origins and filling in the gap where colonialism may have prohibited the continuance of a practice.”
From tree to drum
In making this style of instrument, Chollette explained he first makes slits where the opening is going to be that will shape the sound.
With the drum being hollowed, Chollette said, “It’s a log that gets dug out through narrow slits that will then create the tone of the drum. You then start to chisel out these slits and bit by bit dig out the centre of the log.”
Chollette said it’s a very slow but meditative process, taking up to two months to create.
“What’s special about my particular drum is I made it with the help of a brother, Brad Singh, and we infused this drum with our positive thoughts and energy, camaraderie and joy. The wood holds all the energy from the people it encountered as a tree to now this new journey as a drum.”
The self-taught artist and musician has been known for his creative talents, featured at various events and cultural shows across the Cayman Islands, including Cayman National Cultural Foundation’s Red Boat Experience, which features an improvisational experience of dance, spoken word, poetry, storytelling, art and song, centred around the traditional Caymanian drum, which he makes and plays.
He’s opened his own business, Chollette Heritage, Art and Culture, which offers wellness drumming programmes, sound baths, meditative drumming, corporate team building, private classes, events, and community drum circle events.
‘I am continuing their work’
Chollette said it’s important to preserve this piece of culture and history because, “It’s a part of the African side of my heritage that would have been brought with us had it been allowed. Once again, reconnecting us to who we were …
“I also started making these drums because there is something to be said about using your hands to work with wood found here in Cayman to make something that may have never been made here before. We don’t really know, but that was made by those who came before us in our lineage. It’s as if I am continuing their work for them … doing what they would have wanted to but could not.”
For this style of “special drum” that Chollette has made, this drum doesn’t have animal skin heads, unlike other drums he makes, and instead of being played on the ends, they are turned on their side or stood vertically and played about their trunks.
“These drums are some of the oldest drums ever created, which makes sense because all you needed was a log and something sharp to make one.”
Chollette will be presenting cultural music with the drum alongside his wife Nasaria Suckoo Chollette, who will present traditional duppy stories at the inaugural ‘Crankies Take New York’ festival at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, New York this month.
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