Kristen Arant

Kristen Arant, known as The Drumlady, is a percussionist, singer/songwriter, teaching and performing artist and activist based in the Washington, DC region. She describes her work as empowering diverse, intergenerational communities through joyful, accessible instruction in West African drumming, percussion and song.

Originally a classically trained oboe player with a music degree, she moved to Washington, DC from her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri in 2000 and began drumming there. She helped start the activist drumming ensemble Rhythm Workers Union, and in 2002 began studying West African drumming, learning from teachers including Mamady Keita, Mahiri Keita, Ubaka Hill and Nii Kwao Ashley. In 2004 she began teaching drumming in DC public schools, and in 2005 she founded the Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project, a non-profit that brought young women together through drumming, poetry, songwriting, theatre and dance.

She first traveled to Ghana in 2010 through a partnership with drummer and drum builder Michael Kweku Owusu. Together they led the Akoma Drummers and cultural and musical immersion tours, and built a community arts center in Senya Beraku. In 2013 she founded the Bele Bele Rhythm Collective, an all-women's (non-binary inclusive) West African drumming ensemble. The collective supports her Drumspiration class series, which grew out of free weekly drum lessons she led on Facebook Live during the pandemic and continues in person and on Zoom.

Her facilitation pairs deep technical learning, shared with cultural integrity, with letting go, connecting with the authentic self and transforming fear and grief into joy.