Babatunde Lea

Babatunde Lea (IPA: Liː) is an Afro-Cuban jazz and Worldbeat percussionist. Michael Lea was raised in Englewood, New Jersey, while regularly commuting to 116th and Amsterdam in New York, where the rest of his family lived after moving from his birthplace, Danville, Virginia. His aunt was one of the first women to play in a marching band. He began drumming at the age of 11, when he, without drumming experience helped a drumline get a rhythm right. That same year, his cousin took him to see Babatunde Olatunji and his Drums Of Passion, and Olatunji's influence was so great that Michael took on his first name. At 16, he first participated in a professional recording session with Ed Townsend. In 1968, he moved to San Francisco, where he joined Bata Koto, led by Bill Summers. He joined a band called Juju, which relocated to Richmond, Virginia in the early 1970s. In 1977, he moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area. Among the artists with whom he played were Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Randy Weston, Van Morrison, and Oscar Brown, Jr.. In 1993, Virginia and Babtunde Lea founded the Educultural Foundation, a California 501(c)3 educational non-profit organization based in Vallejo, California.