Funk That

Q: What’s your history with the trombone?

A: I started playing in eighth grade, and I got really into jazz, though I played a lot of classical, too. There was never any afrobeat before I got to Princeton. Then I took a music class here called Music of Africa, and … it actually inspired some of the songs I wrote later.

Q: What has your involvement with Sensemaya been?

A: I decided to join my freshman year. Someone who was in the jazz band with me asked me to join. I started playing trombone with them last year, and I write a lot of tunes. It’s good, because at the beginning of the year we didn’t have a lot of original tunes that we were playing, so we decided to step our game up. Now we have like six tunes in the pipeline that are all originals.

Q: Have you played off campus with Sensemaya?

A: We had one gig off campus. It was cool but kind of weird. It was a health company’s dinner. It was more like background music — there was no dancing. But we play dance music. They were all old people, just chilling out. We would play more off campus if we got a venue, but that’s not really our focus. People are too busy.

Q: But you’ve played at eating clubs, right?

A: Yeah. It’s mad fun; people go crazy. People are just yelling, and it’s great. You get a really positive reaction.

Q: What’s been your favorite club to play?

A: It’s got to be Terrace Club. People just love us there, and everybody gets to dance. The whole room gets packed, wall-to-wall, just grooving to our music. We basically just get up and do our thing.

Q: What was your best experience playing trombone? Was it with Sensemaya?

A: I don’t know. I played in this really great jazz band in New York during my senior year of high school. I got a solo spot, and they got some really big jazz guys to come in and play with us. That was really cool, [but] it was more jazz and artistic. As far as having fun goes, I would say Sensemaya is the most fun I’ve ever had … It’s kind of a rush when everybody’s dancing and yelling and stuff, and we feed off that.