River City Drumbeat (2020)
The African proverb that opens River City Drumbeat sets the tone with its call for families to endow their children with two gifts, one of them “roots and the other, “wings.” In other words, tradition must inform imagination and the gift of being grounded in who you are must enable you to transcend your circumstances.
The documentary by Emmy-winning director Marlon Johnson and Anne Flatté focuses on the lifework of a black resident of Louisville, Ky. determined to uplift his community. Thirty years ago, Nardie White launched the River City Drum Corps to give the children of his neighborhood roots and wings. Now, he’s trying to groom a successor to carry on his work.
White’s neighborhood was, in his words, “sports heavy.” Athletics was the main entertainment and hoop dreams provided the only exit anyone could see. Inspired by his wife Zambia’s interest in African heritage—and rebelling against the perception that art wasn’t for black men—White established the Drum Corps as a means to enroll the largest possible number of local kids in a common creative effort.
Much of the documentary shows White at work, not just as a drum coach but a street philosopher of some profundity. “Everybody place your hand over your heart. If you get really quiet and really still and listen very closely, you can feel something beating in your chest. Every body is a drummer,” he says, adding that the first sound we ever hear is our mother’s heartbeat, a steady rhythm echoed by the drum.
White’s program isn’t just about learning to keep a beat or play in polyrhythms. His kids make their own drums from cast-off metal, recycling and painting discarded objects into things of sonic and visual beauty. His example has made a difference in the lives of some of his kids in their struggle with poverty, addiction, crime and racism. Some have gone on to earn college scholarships. One of his graduates marvels that instead of simply consuming the popular culture being sold to them, “we could create the popular culture.”
One of River City Drumbeat’s strengths is in visually locating White in his particular place, his corner of the world. Louisville unfolds around him in scenes of barges slowly pushing upriver and leafy if shopworn ‘50s subdivisions inching into decrepit districts where teddy bears, representing children lost to gun violence, are nailed to boarded up houses. The film isn’t preachy but allows the humanity, the spirituality of White’s vision to speak for itself.
River City Drumbeat will be virtually released next month.
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