The drummer in this video is Anandan Sivamani of Chennai, India. He plays a multitude of instruments including Octoban, Darbuka, Udukai, and Kanjira. He is widely acclaimed and multi-faceted, claiming a career in music and acting. A link to his website is here and based on all of this info, plus the following video, this is a percussive man we’d be proud to know.
Using loops and nearly every form of percussion you could think of, this man, creates a wall of sound so primal you’d think the rhythm is his interpretation of the heart beat of every person in the house. It’s beautiful and our editor-in-chief loves it!
Trilok Girtu is a god!!! That’s gotta be him, no?
This person is most likely Sivamani. He is an amazing percussionist from my home city of Chennai in India. Check out this wikipedia link about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivamani
I have watch him perform live a few times. This one time, he was on stage with the great classical tabla player Zakir Hussain. It was amazing to watch the two of them groove off each other, Sivamani with his HUGE kit and set-up, and Ustad Zakir Hussain with 2 small tablas and just his hands working the magic.
Hi
I had posted a comment earlier potentially identifying the person in the video as a Tamil drummer from my home city, named Sivamani, along with a wikipedia link about him. On proceeding to watch the video, at about 2 minutes, I noticed text indeed naming the percussionist as Anandan Sivamani.
I am surprised that the editors of this magazine would not take the time to watch the video, do a simple google search of his name, and attach more information about him on this blog post. Instead, the blog author decided to go with a weak apology…
As a racialized woman, and an immigrant from India, already struggling to reconcile my love for rock with my roots in South Indian classical music, I seek out this magazine’s website, and other feminist spaces for support in reversing the erasure of my identity as a brown female rock drummer.
I would like your magazine to re-consider it’s approach to the musicians it features, and be more responsive and responsible to ALL your readers. Deciding to post this video without proper attribution, or even naming the artist has the impact of “stealing” just the sounds/ talents of my country, without needing to humanize the people who create it.
When this video was first posted September 27th, it was done so without the proper research. In doing so, I flagrantly offended one of our readers. In doing that, I am embarrassed and filled with regret. If my error in judgement, from failing to notice the name of the great man who created this piece of work, lost us even one reader, I have not done my job correctly. My lack of judgement is offensive to an international form of music and makes it seem as if what has been done here is illegitimate. in no way, do we want that to be communicated, because something we try to do here at Tom Tom Magazine, is create an international community singing the praises of music being made by females and percussionists everywhere.
I am ashamed at how careless I was in posting this piece at first without doing proper research and take full responsibility. I can assure the person whom I offended, and all Tom Tom readers, something like this will never happen again. Consider it a lesson learned.
Sincerely,
Katyann Gonzalez
Katyann, and TomTom,
Thank you for the revised blog entry. Thank you, too, for taking responsibility for the lack of effort in acknowledging and naming the artist.
I wanted to re-iterate that this goes beyond ‘offending’ me, though. I would place this in the context of the blindness that often permeates our actions, as we unquestioningly center the white/ Global North experience in media representations.
My intention was certainly not to engender feelings of shame or guilt in the blog author. I appreciate the response. I know that I struggle through attributing our teachers who have gone before, and acknowledging the multiple contexts in which music is created and heard. Let’s struggle on, with humility, eh?
This reader is back!
With love
ShukThi