NFUNGOTAH – CO-FOUNDERS

CO-FOUNDERS
Brotha “T”

Brotha T’s love for music was first inspired by his father, prominent New Orleans drummer Wilmer James Henry (aka Octav Vitani Balogun). In 1992, nicknamed DJ “Diamond T” Tyrone began touring the Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi region with other local DJs such as DJ EZ Money, DJ Mannie Fresh, and DJ Wop under the name Ya Boy-n-Nem. In the last two decades, Tyrone has circled back to his roots in drumming and percussion, studying the Garifuna music of Honduras and for more than a decade the music, folklore and dances of Guinea, Senegal, and Mali, West Africa under former Les Ballet National du Sénégal director Abdoulaye Camara. In between his own projects he continues to collaborate with local companies such as Allahbatu Traditional West African Dance Company, Zulu Connections, Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective directed by Ausettua Amor Amenkum, Laina Kuumba African Dance Company, Nfungolah Sibo, Bill Summers, and CASA Samba directed by Afro-Brazilian artist Curtis Pierre. Working with the Young Audiences organization and independently with elementary schools such as Craig, Fisher, Johnson, Alice Hearte, Tubman, and Eisenhower, Brotha T has developed a ‘holistic’ K-6 grade African-derived drumming and percussion curriculum.    This curriculum continues to be used as he teaches through Young Audiences and various Orleans Paris schools. It was out of these long standing creative collaborations, services and products that Nfungotah Inc. was conceived.

Esailama

Since 1989 Esailama has been a performing artist with Diamano Coura West African Dance Company, founded in 1975 by Emmy Award winner Dr. Zakariya Diouf.  Esailama has also worked independently with choreographers and directors in the United States from various genres of African-derived dance theatre including the late Dr. Pearl Primus and Kemoko Sano and theatre companies such as the Ballet Folklorico de Bahia, Les Ballets Africaines, and the Liberian National Cultural Troupe.  Internationally, she has worked with director John Martin (London) and such performing companies as Le Ballet National du Sénégal (Senegal), Theatre for Africa (South Africa) and Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre (India).  As a teacher she has lectured and conducted workshops throughout the United States, in India and Barbados. For 9 nine years she worked closely as a scheduler and consultant to actor Danny Glover and is currently completing her dissertation on the migration of West African-derived dance culture to the United States.