From Playing for People to Creating With People
My relationship with music began through Yoruba percussion. Before the saxophone became a major part of my artistic identity, I was learning how rhythm could communicate through instruments such as the omele, cord, talking drum, omele bata and iya ilu bata. That early experience shaped something that has stayed with me. Music is not only something we perform to an audience, it can be something we build with people.
Over more than a decade, my practice has expanded into saxophone, piano, vocals, composition, live performance, theatre and multidisciplinary work. Since moving to the UK, I have increasingly found myself working in spaces where the purpose of music is bigger than performance. I have performed in theatres, festivals and cultural events, but I have also been developing as a participatory artist and creative facilitator through work involving singing, drumming, movement, memory and community wellbeing.
That shift has changed the way I think about being an artist. I am still interested in performance, improvisation and creating strong musical moments, but I am equally interested in what happens when people who do not see themselves as musicians are invited into the process. What happens when somebody claps a rhythm for the first time? What happens when a room of strangers listens to one another and discovers that they can make something together?
One recent expression of this thinking is Better Rhythm, a participatory music and movement experience I developed at ArtBomb in Doncaster. The workshop draws on Yoruba rhythm, percussion, storytelling and collective music-making. Its central principle is simple: Listen • Respond • Create.
The structure was deliberately accessible. Participants did not need previous musical experience. We began with welcome and arrival, then moved into body percussion through clapping, stamping, tapping and call-and-response. We introduced talking drums, omele drums, shekere and claves, explored the idea of the drum as a voice for communication and storytelling, and then moved into a collective rhythm-making process. Movement, pauses and reflection were also part of the session.
For me, the most important part of Better Rhythm is that there is no single “right” way to participate. Someone can play an instrument. Someone else can clap. Another person can move, sing, listen or simply observe. Participation should not create another barrier, it should create an invitation.
The workshop also allowed me to bring together different parts of my identity and practice, my Yoruba musical roots, my experience as a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, my interest in storytelling, and my developing creative-health practice. Rather than separating culture, music and wellbeing, Better Rhythm asks what can happen when they meet in the same room.
I have also begun to use this participatory approach beyond a formal workshop setting. At a community celebration connected with the opening of Mexborough Library, I was invited to perform, but I found myself responding to the room through participation rather than remaining only on the stage. I used the saxophone to engage with people, encouraged movement and shared musical moments, and allowed the audience to become part of the experience. That moment reinforced something I am learning in my practice, sometimes the most meaningful performance is the one that changes the relationship between artist and audience.
This is important to me as a migrant artist building a creative life in Doncaster and the wider Yorkshire region. Music gives me a way to carry my cultural history while also meeting people where they are. Yoruba rhythm can enter a community space without asking people to already understand the culture. Instead, rhythm becomes an invitation to listen, respond, move and create together.
My ambition is to continue developing this practice so that participatory music is not an occasional addition to my performance work, but a central part of what I offer. I want to work with different communities, including young people, older people, people experiencing isolation, and African and Global Majority communities and create spaces where culture, creativity and connection can happen together.
For me, honouring communities’ means more than representing them. It means making room for people to contribute. It means recognising the knowledge, stories, rhythms and experiences that people already carry. And sometimes, it begins with something as simple as finding a shared rhythm.
What Happens When the Audience Becomes Part of the Music?
I have spent many years learning how to stand in front of people and perform. I know the feeling of preparing an instrument, waiting for the cue, listening to the band and finding the moment when the music should speak. But participatory practice has taught me to ask a different question: what if I do not need to be the only person making the music?
That question has taken me back to where my own musical journey began. Yoruba percussion taught me that rhythm is relational. The talking drum can communicate, supporting drums can hold a foundation, different voices can sit inside one rhythmic conversation. These ideas are not only musical techniques to me. They have become a way of thinking about community.
When I designed Better Rhythm, I wanted that principle to be visible in the room. The session was built around listening, responding and creating. Rather than beginning with a long explanation, we began by finding a shared rhythm through the body. Clapping, stamping and tapping gave people an immediate way into the work. From there, the drums became less like specialist instruments and more like invitations to communicate.
I deliberately included the idea that people could participate in different ways. This is important to my developing creative-health practice because accessibility is not only about physical access. It is also about emotional permission, permission not to be perfect, permission to try, permission to stop, permission to observe and permission to contribute when you are ready.
The phrase “You don't need to be a drummer to make rhythm. Your body already carries rhythm” captures something central to my practice. I want people to recognise that creativity is not reserved for people with formal musical training. The role of the facilitator is partly to create the conditions in which people can discover that for themselves.
I am increasingly interested in the moment when a performance stops being a presentation and becomes an exchange. The saxophone can still be the instrument I am known for, but it can also become a bridge that helps me approach people, respond to movement, create curiosity and invite participation.
This is why I see Better Rhythm as a beginning rather than a finished project.
“Listen • Respond • Create”
Better Rhythm: From Yoruba Rhythm to Collective Wellbeing
The starting point
Better Rhythm grew from my developing practice as a participatory artist and creative facilitator. I wanted to create a workshop where African/Yoruba musical traditions could be experienced through participation rather than simply watched. The idea was to use rhythm, drumming, movement, storytelling and collective music-making to explore connection, confidence, creativity and wellbeing.
The context
The pilot session took place at ArtBomb during the Stories Grows here in Doncaster on 4 September 2026. The participant handout made the invitation clear, no previous musical experience was required, and people could take part through playing, clapping, movement, singing, listening or observation.
The method
The workshop followed a deliberate rhythm journey. We welcomed the group, used body percussion as a warm-up, introduced the instruments and the stories behind their sounds, explored the Ilu Agbẹ́kọ́pa shoulder-carried/hanging drum-circle approach, and developed call-and-response patterns. We then connected rhythm with movement, confidence and wellbeing before moving into collective creation and reflection.
What made the approach participatory?
The key was to move away from the idea that the facilitator performs while everyone else watches. Instead, the facilitator sets the conditions, demonstrates, invites, listens and gradually steps back.
What I learned
The pilot strengthened my understanding of how my performance background can support participatory work. My experience with saxophone, vocals, piano and Yoruba percussion gives me a broad musical vocabulary, but facilitation requires a different kind of listening. I have to listen to the room, notice different levels of confidence, create space for quieter forms of participation and make sure the cultural material remains welcoming rather than intimidating.
Beyond Better Rhythm: Extending My Participatory Practice
My participatory practice is also developing through invitations to contribute to wider community and cultural events. At the Stronger Together African & Caribbean Cultural
Workshop at Vestry Hall, Sheffield, on 18 July 2026, I was invited to contribute through talking drum and bata. This gave me another opportunity to share Yoruba musical traditions directly with a community audience and to use rhythm as a way of creating cultural connection.
I have also been exploring what happens when my saxophone enters a participatory rhythm created by other people. At Collective Routes & Beyond at Danum Gallery, Library and Museum in Doncaster on 20 June 2026, I joined the Skintones during workshop with my saxophone and responded musically to the rhythm being created by the group. Rather than leading the room from the front, I listened to the collective rhythm and added a warm saxophone line to it. This experience reinforced for me that my role can move fluidly between performer, collaborator and participant, depending on what the group needs.
These experiences strengthen the direction of Better Rhythm: I am not only presenting African music to communities, but developing ways for people to create, respond and connect together. They also demonstrate that my participatory practice can work across different settings, age groups and cultural contexts.
From pilot to next stage
Better Rhythm is now a starting point for further development. I want to test the model with different Doncaster communities and develop a longer programme rather than treating the workshop as a one-off event. A future programme could include a series of participatory sessions followed by a community sharing or showcase, with the content adapted through listening to each group. The aim is not simply to teach African rhythm, it is to use rhythm as a tool for meeting, listening, creating and building connection.
Why this matters to my wider practice
Better Rhythm brings together the strands of my artistic journey, Yoruba musical heritage, live performance, improvisation, cultural exchange and my developing practice in creative health and participatory arts. It also reflects how I want to work in the communities where I now live. My ambition is to create artistic experiences where people are not treated only as audiences, but as contributors whose presence changes what the work becomes.
“There is no need to play perfectly. Rhythm is a shared experience, and everyone can participate at their own level by playing, clapping, moving, listening or simply observing.”
To find out more about Olamide Sax's work, you can visit his website here