Junior Wedderburn

Junior “Gabu” Wedderburn is an accomplished percussionist who has performed and recorded with a variety of well-known reggae artistes and dance companies, and who has also composed percussive scores for dance and film. He was the composer, co-director and co-producer for the films Bad Friday and Four Days in May, and the co-curator of a multi-media installation titled Bearing Witness: Four Days in West Kingston, which was on view at the Penn Museum from November 2017 to October 2020. Wedderburn was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and grew up around Afro-Jamaican ritual drumming practices. At the age of three, he was selected at his infant school to drum for their Jonkonnu celebrations, and in primary school, he began drumming for the school choir and the folkdance groups who were part of the national festival competition. When Wedderburn began secondary school, he met Neville Black, who, with Rex Nettleford and Eddie Thomas, founded the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. His involvement with Black introduced him to cultural luminaries across the island, including Kapo, Olive Lewin and the Jamaican Folk Singers, Imogene “Queenie” Kennedy, Ivy Baxter, Lavinia Williams and others, with whom Wedderburn drummed and conducted workshops. At the same time, he performed with groups like the Jolly Boys Mento band at the new hotels that were being built in the area. Neville Black had two kumina drummers working with him, and they made Wedderburn his first kumina drums. At 16, Wedderburn began attending the Jamaica School of Music, and playing for (and touring with) the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. He left the School during the height of the political violence that emerged in the run-up to the 1980 elections, and he went back to Port Antonio, where he founded Dominion Percussion, a group of drummers who played Afro-Jamaican ritual traditions. With Dominion Percussion, Wedderburn won several gold medals from the National Festival Commission, and the Jamaica Tourist Board took the group to Florida to represent Jamaica during their promotional tours. Artists across Jamaica came to Port Antonio and asked Wedderburn to perform with them, and his repertoire broadened to include West African rhythms and chants. At the same time, he began performing with reggae artiste Burning Spear, which led him to New York City. In New York, he founded Ancient Vibrations, a percussion group that presents traditional Afro-Jamaican rhythms and chants, the roots of reggae music. Between 1990-1995, Wedderburn toured extensively with Urban Bush Women, performing and creating percussive scores for both repertoire and evening-length pieces. He has played with The Lion King on Broadway since it began development in 1997.