COLIN Stephenson is very passionate about the conga drums, percussions and music as a whole and has been playing music since he was a little child.
The Pepperpot Magazine sat down with Stephenson who talked about his life and career in the music industry.

As he described it, he started out in the bottom-house band with a group of friends who were living in Vreed-en- Hoop.

“When I started, I had no knowledge of percussions or anything, but I had a musical background. My parents were pianists, but in particular, my mother was all classical but spicy, so my musical career started like [at] six years old,” he recalled during his interview with the Pepperpot Magazine.

He recalled crowds outside his parents’ home as he played music with his mother and the likes of Tucker Whittaker, Dave Martins and a few others who were just as musically gifted as he was in displaying their God-given talent.

Stephenson recalled that he was introduced to the art of drumming and he began playing the bongos.

The differences between Bongo and Conga Drums
Bongo drums, also called bongos are a pair of small, single-headed Afro-Cuban drums. The two heads, which are respectively about 5 inches (13 cm) and about 7 inches (18 cm) across, are nailed or rod-tensioned to wooden, open-ended “shells” of the same height.

While the conga drum is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and are traditionally used in Afro-Cuban genres such as conga and rhumba, although they are now very common in some other forms of Latin music.

“There is a guy named ‘Bongo Charlie’, he is a Cuban, and his real name is Charlie Agard. He taught me to play the bongos, while he played the congas, but I liked what he was doing, and eventually, I ended up learning to play the congas; and I remember it took me something like six months to perfect what is called the ‘slap shot,’ but I was well schooled,” Stephenson explained.
“After learning to play the congas, whenever I had to play out on a session, I would normally hire conga drums, prior to my usage of the Indian tassa drums from my Indian friends that I would have used to play in the Combo Seven Band.”

The Formation of Conga
“Noel Heywood is the founder of the band, but before he became leader, they were asking me to be leader, and I declined and utilised my skills to become an administrative leader,” Stephenson noted during his interview.

He noted that the band was so disciplined that they were honoured with an award from the President of Guyana at that time.

“It, therefore, meant that we gained much exposure on the international scene, where we gladly showed our presence,” he explained.

‘They say that I am the only professional conga drummer’
“There was this guy called ‘Wobbler.’ He came to the band specialised in making ‘conga drums.’ So I always had a new pair of congas maybe every six months or so. Well I learnt from Bongo Charlie and I would just be playing the normal thing, and I remember that the Mighty Sparrow sent his guy because we played with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires on several occasions,” Stephenson noted during his interview.

According to him, as a percussionist, you must have good timing when playing in a band.

“But when I really perfected my conga skills, is when I lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for 16 years,” he explained.

During his time there is really where he gained his experience in the percussion instruments, he recalled. These include timpani, xylophone, cymbals, triangle, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, maracas, gongs, chimes, celesta, and piano.

Stephenson said that he enjoys what he does and he is in love with what he does and he shared with us that whenever he plays, he loves to dance while playing because he is so in love with his music.