Teenage Street Performer Surprised With 1st Real Drum Set
"I appreciate it so much. Thank you," said Sadio Soumounou.
— -- A self-taught teenage street performer from Brooklyn, New York, got the surprise of a lifetime today on “Good Morning America.”
Sadio Soumounou, 14, received his very first real drum set, something he had never been able to afford.
“Oh, wow, man. Thank you so much,” a shocked Soumounou said on “GMA” today, covering his mouth in disbelief. “Thank you. I appreciate it so much. Thank you.”
Until this point, the talented drummer had only been using buckets he found in the trash to show off his skills on the New York City subway. But that was enough to impress on social media, with a video of him singing and drumming a Justin Bieber song going viral with nearly 55,000 retweets on Twitter.
“Since I was a little kid I’ve loved playing drums. I loved playing around with things,” he explained. “I’m an experimenter. I like experimenting new things. I was always singing, and I was a drummer also, so I was like, ‘You know what? I should put it together.’ And that’s what happened.”
The freshman at Benjamin Banneker Academy in Brooklyn said his family would have talent shows in their living room growing up. And he’s never taken a formal drum class in his life, instead picking up much of his craft online from watching YouTube videos.
“When I walk in the subway, some people say, ‘Here we go again,’” he said. “And then at the end of the show, they end up giving me $2.”
But the young artist said he doesn’t do it for the money. He just wants to make people happy and inspire other kids to showcase their talents, too.
“A lot of kids have talents and they don’t like to share it,” said Soumounou. “They’re scared, because of what they think other people will say to them. I want to extend that message out to other kids: Don’t be scared.”