THREE WOMEN MAKE HISTORY, MUSIC AT GSU
Grambling State World Famed drummers are a rare sight on band drum line
By MINIYA SHABAZZ
GSU Media Bureau
History was made in the World-Famed Tiger Marching Band this semester when the “Snare Sistahs” — Janequia Alberty, Brianna Cannady, and Ya’Lisha Gatewood — came together to play the snare drums.
“Women have been a part of the snare drum since the early ‘80s,” said Edwin Thomas, a Grambling State University assistant director of bands from New Iberia, Louisiana, who supervises the band’s drum line. “You might have one every four years because this is a predominately male-oriented section.” The trio played at the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship game at NRG Stadium. They played as the G-Men won against Alcorn State University, 27-20. Next, they will be headed to Atlanta to play the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) champion North Carolina Central University Eagles at the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta on Dec. 17.
Alberty is new to the GSU World Famed Tiger Marching Band, but music has been part of her life since she was four years old, and she’s been in a band since sixth grade.
“Music always had a positive role on my life so I choose to be in music instead of sports,” said the freshman, an engineering technology major from Lancaster, Texas.
She was introduced to Grambling by her high school band director, Adrian Bonner, a World Famed drum major who was attended GSU in the late 1990s. Alberty attended GSU’s summer band camp after her junior year in high school, as she was going into her senior year, — and she was hooked.
“That was the main reason why I wanted to come because I got to see how Grambling style was and just the way it felt,” Alberty said. “It felt like home.”
After auditioning for the World Famed, she was awarded a P1 rank, the highest rank in the band based on accuracy, musicianship and more. She is proud to be a part of the band, and this specific part of history.
“Women are like secret weapons on snares. If you go to any other HBCU drumline, they don’t really like women or have women that can play snares, so for us to play at Grambling, for them being World Famed and being women it feels phenomenal,” she added.
Cannady, a freshman in the band, has been playing snare drums since the age of seven. Her father was her inspiration. He started her on a drum set at church, and she would play when her father sang in the choir.
“My daddy molded me to being a drummer because he was a drummer in high school, too,” said Cannady, an engineering technology major from Tulsa, Oklahoma. “He didn’t play snare. He played quints and base, and he taught me everything I know.”
Canndady started playing in a marching band in sixth grade, and she’s attended Grambling’s band camp every year since the eighth grade.
“In the eighth grade when the band camp had opened back up, my middle school director took us here and I would always come to band camp every year…,” she said.
Thomas said she was persistent.
“She called me for a month straight,” he recalled. “She wanted to come to Grambling. She kept calling to make sure her paperwork was straight, that her audition was straight. Anytime somebody wants to come that bad, that’s the kind of people we want.”
Cannady is short in stature but she can play the drum as if she were six feet tall.
“It’s a little overwhelming at times, but it’s a great thing because boys underestimate women and they get mad when they see women can actually do what they do and even better. It’s actually an honor to be a girl drummer in the band, especially being my size and carrying the same drum as everyone else,” said Cannady.
Gatewood is the veteran female snare drummer in the World Famed. She’s been playing snare in the Tiger marching band since 2013.
Gatewood is no stranger to making history as she was the first African American female snare drummer at Airline High School in Bossier City.
She has been playing drums for 12 years and started playing in the band in the sixth grade.
“When I was in fifth grade, I watched drumline for the first time and I remember when GSU was going onto the field right after the girl was singing the anthem, and I was like whatever school that is, I want to go to that school,” said senior Gatewood, a mass communication major from Shreveport.
She didn’t play snare drums until her senior year of high school, and she can play other instruments as well. Gatewood started out on bass drums in middle school, and she played xylophone and cymbals in 9th-11th grades.
“It’s a hobby that I like to do,” she said. “I like to perform, I love to put on a good show and I like when we all play together and sound alike. It’s real fun.”
With all of the hours of practice required to execute not only the precision playing, but also the precision marching required of members of the World Famed Tiger Band, this trio has become more than part of the drum line. They’ve become sisters, snare sisters.
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