Baba Don Eaton Babatunde has performed with many major American dance companies in the world’s greatest performing-arts venues. His recording career is as varied as it is vast, and the jazz idiom, R&B, and most African-derived percussion styles are represented in his discography. He is a featured member of The Last Poets, a poetry collective and musical group that arose in the late 1960s as part of the African-American civil rights movement and Black nationalism. Long acknowledged as one of New York City’s master teachers of African drumming and the rhythms of the Diaspora in the Americas, Baba Don Eaton Babatunde has been on faculty at the Harlem School of the Arts for over 25 years.
His theatrical credits include the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Macbeth, Caligula, and Dream on Monkey Mountain as percussionist for each production, and he has performed with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theatre, and the House of Blues. He has also featured on Sesame Street and with Julie Andrews on Julie’s Greenroom.
Baba Don Babatunde has received proclamations from the City of New Orleans and the City of New York Public Advocate’s Office, and has a plaque of recognition from the Mid-Manhattan branch of the NAACP for his contribution to the arts.
Go Tell It On the Mountain: James Baldwin in Words and Music