Meet Tomicks, The Drummer Boy From Africa

For most of his life, Tomicks has played the drums in service of someone else’s music. In church, they accompanied worship. At weddings and live gigs, they held the rhythm together. Now, the Nigerian percussionist wants to change that relationship. His music puts the drums at the centre of the composition, allowing them to carry a melody, express emotion and tell a story without a singer. His forthcoming album, Drum Is Art, takes its title from this philosophy.

Tomicks’ relationship with percussion began in church, where he started with the agogo before progressing to the sekere, conga and Agbamole drum. Children were not permitted to play the full drum kit, so his progression depended partly on opportunity. When the church drummer travelled, he was moved to the main church to play the Agbamole. Eventually, he took over the drum kit because nobody else was available. What began as a practical arrangement became a lasting pursuit.

At school fellowships and church events, people gathered around the young drummer, spraying him with money and buying him gifts. He enjoyed the attention, but he also noticed what the music did to people. “I also saw how it made people happy, how playing some strokes lightened people’s faces,” he says. He found fulfillment in the ability to move people through music.

Tomicks is self-taught, having learned by watching experienced drummers at church anniversaries and concerts, memorising their patterns and practising what he observed. A friend’s brother, a guitarist, later shared downloaded learning materials with him. His mother, meanwhile, had to contend with the occasional broken plate during his practice sessions. “I had access to a community that loved me and that was all it took,” he says, describing the encouragement that helped him develop his craft.

His recent single, Ayò Ni, places the Yoruba Agbamole drum at the centre of the composition. The instrument had long been part of his musical vocabulary, earning him the nickname Akuba at school for his performances at Friday fellowships. With the single, he wants to give the Agbamole room to lead rather than treating it as another sound beneath a vocal performance.

Tomicks sees this as a way of reconnecting the instrument with its cultural significance. Historically, he explains, percussion has played a central role in Yoruba celebrations, carrying associations with joy, hope and communal life. Ayò Ni makes the Agbamole both the subject and the storyteller.

His approach to composition reflects this philosophy. Ideas can begin with a lyric, melody or rhythm, which he records before arranging the pieces into a finished work. The process might take hours or stretch across months. The drums often come last, serving as the final element that determines whether the composition has become what he intended. “When I write my songs, the drum is always the last piece,” he says. The goal is for percussion to become the lead voice rather than accompaniment.

For Tomicks, the drum is an instrument of expression, much like a paintbrush in the hands of an artist. “The drum can be whatever and whoever it wants to be,” he says. “The outcome lies in the hands of who wields it.” This belief informs Drum Is Art, which is currently in the recording stage.

Although many of his releases feature him playing alone, Tomicks also works with vocalists and saxophonists when a composition calls for another voice. He describes the drum as speaking Yoruba, a cultural language capable of expressing joy, sadness, anger and rebellion, but one that may not be immediately understood by every listener. Collaboration allows him to reach audiences beyond that language without surrendering the percussion’s central role.

The distinction matters in an industry where the singer is usually the most visible person on a record. Drummers are often valued for supporting a performance rather than leading one. Tomicks has encountered this attitude himself, recalling people who told him to stick to drumming instead of concerning himself with musical progression or vocals. “These comments are very demeaning, but they have been my fuel so far,” he says. His solo work challenges the assumption that a drummer should remain in the background.

He also wants younger drummers to see percussion as a viable creative pursuit rather than an instrument they must eventually move beyond to become recognised artists. He believes musicians need examples of people who have built careers around their craft. For indigenous instruments to attract new audiences, he argues, they must also be presented in ways that appeal to contemporary listeners.

Rather than crediting a single drummer as his defining influence, Tomicks studies music more broadly, paying attention to how artists convey feeling and attempting to recreate that emotional experience through percussion. He is less interested in technical ability for its own sake than in making the drums communicate something recognisable to a listener.

The name Boy from Africa, which he adopted for his 2025 release of the same title, reflects the larger identity he is building around this idea. His forthcoming album is intended to take him beyond the Agbamole and Yoruba musical traditions, exploring percussion from other African cultures and eventually other parts of the world. For him, keeping indigenous instruments alive means giving them new contexts in which to be heard.

Tomicks says his music has received radio play in Kenya, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, with encouraging responses from listeners outside Nigeria. He hopes to build on that interest and establish an audience for music that does not fit neatly into conventional categories of popular music.

With Drum Is Art, Tomicks wants a younger generation to see indigenous instruments as worthy of leading a record, not merely supporting one. Having learned his craft by watching others, he now hopes to become an example for the next generation. His ambition extends beyond Nigeria, towards a world in which percussion can be heard on its own terms. The drum, he insists, has always had a voice. He wants more people to listen.