Afropop Worldwide

Banner photo, (c) Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

We first fell in love with Grammy-nominated steel pan artist Joy Lapps, when she walked – or rather, waddled – on stage, eight months pregnant at the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal last week. She began by letting the audience know that at some point she would probably run off stage for a bathroom break. We fell in love with her again, a few days after when we sat down with her via Zoom to learn not just about her music, but also her work as a music educator and community activist.

Listening to Lapps perform, bringing the steel pan into a jazz ensemble, one discovers a truly original sound. For sure, the steel pan immediately places you in a Caribbean frame of mind, but while you might think the instrument’s range of mood limited, Lapps transcends all that. The xylophone and marimba have long had a place in the jazz world, and Lapps demonstrates she is able to give the steel pan a similar but more ethereal sound than those other percussion instruments, which we'd say is better experienced that explained in words.

Like many superheroes, Lapps has an origin story. She was attracted to music at an early age as there was a lot of music in her home in Toronto where she was born. Both her parents moved there from Antigua. Her mother sang in their church choir, and her father was a DJ for house parties within the Caribbean community, and later a concert promoter, bringing to Toronto audiences Soca bands like Burning Flames and Krosfyah.

In her youth, Lapps dabbled with the flute and saxophone, but then one day, the minister at their church announced they were starting a steel pan program. Lapps' godmother came running with her checkbook to sign her up for lessons. Lapps took to the instrument like a fish to water. Soon enough, she was performing gigs with her teacher at weddings and other gatherings. And eventually, he would send her out on her own when he double-booked gigs.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Ron Deutsch: It's one thing to enjoy playing music as a teenager, making a little side money, I'm sure. But what kept you at it to pursue playing steel pan professionally?

Joy Lapps: I think what really kept me going was actually my dad. He made me record a couple of records. He used to hire this musical director for the shows he was producing, and so he literally just took me to this guy and said: 'You're making a record.' And so I always say that my dad kind of 'Joe Jackson'd me' into it [referring to Michael Jackson's father], but like without the, you know, the weird stuff.

It started off with hymns, gospel tunes, and then I did a Christmas record. And like, there was this one time this guy messaged me on Facebook and he says 'I owe you $20.' and I'm like, 'why?' And he says because 'I have a burnt copy of your CD.' And then he said this is the only music his dad would listen to on his deathbed. Or I'd have people write me messages, like, 'This is the only thing that would put my child to sleep.' Or this one woman came to my house one year and bought 10 Christmas CD's. And for a Canadian indie artist, I sold a lot of CDs. And then you're playing for people's weddings and baby showers and funerals. And so you, so you kind of end up being in these like…you're the music for them in these most important life transitions.

And then there came a point where my now husband [Grammy-winning drummer for Snarky Puppy, Larnell Lewis] said to me: “Joy, you should really write music.” Because a lot of times as steel pan players, you play covers. People like the sound and they recognize the music. And that's kind of the catch to it, right? But my husband said, “You should really write. You know, you've been immersed in so much music that you could write songs.” I was a business major and I hated it. So I went back to York University for music.

Most people, when they think about steel pan music, it's mostly Caribbean music, or like you said, just covers of popular songs. What influenced you to go the jazz route?

Lapps: Well as you heard in the concert, there's Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian, zouk, kompa elements. I'm just trying to like meld the things that are very much a part of me. I grew up on a lot of r &b and gospel.... Bob Marley, Bunny Whaler, Miles Davis, the Sound of Music [soundtrack], Willie Nelson, Whitney – so all of those things.

And I think I would say in my household, my parents... just like the food, the dialect, the community gatherings… they made a point of instilling the value of that cultural history, allowing us to play mass and play steel pan and do all these things. West African drumming. I think my dad had a very pan-Africanist mindset. So that impacted my lived experience very, very much and really impacts who I am.

But my biggest influence, I would say, would be Andy Narell for sound. He's actually a steel pan jazz artist. I think he just hit 70. The thing that I loved about him most was – not that there weren't other steel pan artists doing improvisation and stuff – but the quality of his recordings, that really inspired me. He lives mostly in Paris but is a Jewish New York native whose father started to do steel pan as an inner-city programming opportunity for children in New York. I was very inspired by the quality of his recordings, and the instrument makeup of his ensembles – which mine kind of veers from; mine's probably more aggressive and louder. But also, he had placements in movies with his music and had written music for small jazz ensemble and then adapted for steel band. So now, steel bands across North America, universities and stuff like that are buying his music, learning his music and then bringing him in as a clinician to perform. And so these are all like career aspirational things that I have for myself. And when I was able to meet him and work with him, to see how he and his wife work together – for me it was an example of a really healthy relationship of two creative people.

And my husband plays in Snarky Puppy, so some of their approaches and influences I also have. Other than that, I'm just a kid that grew up on Stevie Wonder.

Tell me about your work as an educator.

Lapps: The way I would describe it is that I’m an education consultant or creative consultant. So my work, it varies, but I do things like I'll go in and teach a steel pan workshop. Or I've had schools that had a steel pan program 30 years ago and just based on personnel changes with the music teachers and interest and just even like understanding, the pans might get shoved into a storage. I had a librarian—I think she was like a 60 year old Trinidadian woman—and she said, “You know they're de-cluttering. They think this is garbage. Please come.” And so I came to this school, and really interestingly this is a school in a very high needs area, a very large population of Afro -Caribbean, West African students, and they would have thrown the pans out if it wasn't for her. And so I worked with the school to pull them out, to see which ones are in good condition, to rent some more, to compliment the set.

The school district has itinerant teachers who can apply to come to the school, so I'm working with them to make sure they have a school system of teachers for them. And then making a plan with them to say, “Okay, you have you have like $15,000 worth of steel pans. We just need to compliment that. I know you probably can't spend another 20 or 15. But every year you can just kind of build it up.” And so now they have a functional set of pans that not only the school can use, but I then went back to teach at a summer camp that they had that were also using the instruments. And then I'll go and work with the music teacher or whoever is interested to kind of guide them through some beginner lessons. And so before they have no schools using pans, and in a year you might have 20 schools in the Board that might see the instruments. So it's stuff like that.

Also, one of the universities, they were looking at wellness and music as a long term thing that people could engage in even if you don't have to be a professional musician. And so they said, “Let's do pan. Let's do ukulele.” So I was the person consulting through the purchasing process, finding the suppliers, and then teaching the first round of lessons. And that's kind of my work.

Because of racism, a lot of our practices were just banned, outlawed, minimized just because they had roots in West Africa. So I would say that when I go into schools and teach children about steel pans, what I like to anchor or highlight for them is that when we can learn from anything – someone's food, the thing they're wearing on their head, the reason why they go to church on Sunday or Saturday or Friday.. Do you know what I mean? When we take time to understand: How did they get here? Why do they speak like this? Why do they talk or eat this? Why don't they eat this? It all allows us to just be more understanding. And I think it just allows us to have more appreciation and love for another in the midst of our differences.