After spending time working with international development agencies in West Africa, Marco and Carmella Sotelino wanted to start working for themselves while continuing to have a beneficial impact in these same communities. They decided to leverage the friendships they had developed with artisans in Senegal and Mali to start Universal Drum, an entrepreneurial venture that imports products directly from West African artisans who they have a personal relationship with, providing their US customers with a direct connection to a global community and critical funding to the local artists. From Boston, Marco shared some of his experiences developing Universal Drum:

Eliot: How did Universal Drum come about? What lead you to launch the company?

Marco: I started Universal Drum here in Massachusetts with my wife Carmella after returning from Africa. We lived in Mali for a little over a year together, and had met a lot of artists during our travels. My background is mainly in education and development. I worked mostly with programs that are funded through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), so multimillion dollar grants that fund school-based programs to keep kids in school, improve literacy, provide adult education, etc. My interest, especially after living in Africa and dealing with the closeout of projects, is what happens when projects end. I started thinking that I’d really like to start working to actually create income and generate some jobs locally. To accomplish this, we had been talking about establishing a sustainable business model to create some employment and income opportunities for the artists that we had met.

Carmella’s background is also in the nonprofit sector, so we were both used to going to the government or wealthy donors when trying to fund a program. I started thinking about working out a model that could help out these artists in a way where we didn’t have to go around asking for donations.  Instead we wanted to provide a service by supplying products to people in the US who are interested in the opportunity to buy something unique, something that’s handmade, something that has a history; a product that gives them a connection with artists in Mali and Senegal.

When we moved back to Boston, we launched www.universaldrum.net and formalized relationships with three artists we had met in our travels: one in Senegal, the drum-maker Moussa N’diaye, and two artists in Mali, Tenin Niare and Karim Sylla. We worked with the artisans to figure out what are the products that we can get and how much they would cost to make. Once we had worked out some of the logistics, we started working with festivals here locally in Boston and did other promotions online with Facebook, eBay and all sorts of other venues to get the word out about Universal Drum. 

Eliot: How did you develop business relationships with the artisans you currently work with?

Marco: So Moussa, in Senegal, is the person I’ve known the longest. I met him in 2003 while I was studying abroad in Senegal. I had chosen West Africa because I wanted to study the region’s music. I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, and was always interested in samba music and the connection between African drumming and Brazilian drumming. When I was in college in the US, I finally had the opportunity to study abroad. I was at Middlebury College in Vermont and took a spring semester to go to Senegal. I heard good music coming from the area and it's a French speaking country, so I thought I’d benefit from being there.

I met Moussa through a mutual friend. I wanted to craft my own djembe. This process starts with purchasing wood for the drum, so I asked my friend Bouna, who had roots in the area, if he knew where I could get a quality body for the djembe. He recommended Moussa, who he had known since he was a kid.  Moussa is a very interesting character: he loves reggae music, he loves to read, he loves Marcus Garvey and he’s all about Africa unite, one Africa. He has that kind of mentality. We spent three days traveling around Dakar, going to all these different spots where you can potentially buy a drum body.  To make a djembe, you buy wood that’s already roughly carved into the shape of a drum. The drum maker gets a rough body which they smooth out and finish. Then they’ve got the body of their drum.

So it was during those bus trips stuck in traffic, talking to these different drum vendors, that I started to learn about what you’re looking for in terms of good wood; what’s the shape that you want, what’s the size that you want, what’s the difference between the size of the holes within the drum, why would you want larger, smaller, etc. As we were going on this mission, I think we felt a connection and recognized an opportunity to learn from each other. 

I ended up building my first full-scale djembe with Moussa. That was very good experience to share with him. He was working on a drum for my brother and I was next to him, working on a drum for myself. Later, when I decided I wanted to start this business, I knew I wanted to work with people that I trust, that I know are talented and that I know are going to be honest and straightforward with me — there really wasn’t anybody else to think of. 

The other two artisans that I thought of immediately, I met in Mali. I met Tenin Niare when I needed someone to help me out around the house when I arrived in the country. She was helping me with laundry, some cooking and just helped me get around the city. As time went on, I found that her real passion is making tapestries. She uses natural dye to make beautiful designs on tapestries, purses and clothes (You can check out some of her work here). She’s also very solution-oriented and resourceful, so she’s a great person to know if you’re doing business in Mali.

The third artisan, Karim Sylla, I met later on, after living in Mali for close to a year. I had been working with a studio, called Studio Mali in Bamako. One day, I locked my keys in my car, and this guy Karim offered to help me out. Although he couldn’t get my keys out of the car, we did have a great conversation. We started talking about music. I also found out that he made the same sort of tapestries as Tenin. He told me about his work, and mentioned that he started an artisan association Jigiya Barô in his area. He explained to me, “I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of talented artists. There are tailors, sculptors, people who work with tapestries, instrument makers; there are all of these different people. I knew it would be really good if we organized ourselves so we could share resources and offer help to people who might want to learn about a certain art form, like women or out-of-school youth who need some direction and want something to do.” 

A couple weeks later, we set a time and my wife and I went around and actually saw where the artists were working. I was impressed by the whole thing he had put together. He had shown a great ability to push people to organize themselves and formalize relationships in order to create this association. Our first order from Karim and his association was actually placed before we started our business. We decided to give these small ebony sculptures the association makes as party favors at our wedding in Boston. We started talking to him, and course, we were kind of late in figuring out what we wanted. He literally had two weeks to get these 200 pieces put together because we were going to come back to the US, and we wanted to bring back all of our things. No problem for Karim. He said, “Sure, I’ll do it,” and I gave him an advance.

He started working on it a week later.  We went by his house to see how things were going and he showed me the pieces and explained the quality control on our order.  We really appreciated the level of detail he was giving to what we requested. Sure enough, 3 or 4 days later we went back and all the pieces we had ordered were ready.  So when we started Universal Drum, we really wanted to have somebody like Karim who is proactive, but also represents an association.  He gives us a connection to a lot of products and manages 40 or 50 artists that work with him, which makes things much easier on our end. 

Eliot: You have a very personal relationship with your artists.  What do you see as the relationship between your artists and your customers? 

Marco: The relationship between our artists and our customers really sets us apart, and is something that we’re always trying to develop.  For example, we recently met a music therapist whose specialty is Latin drumming.  He was at our stand at a festival, and he pulled out a talking drum that he had. I was telling him that it was different than the ones I had seen, which were smaller and had lizard skin heads.  He asked if I could get one for him. I said, “sure, let me talk to Moussa and see what we can do.” Then I told him about how I had met Moussa in Senegal, and how his order would be going through someone just a phone call away. In this way, we see Universal Drum as facilitating that relationship between the two; he’s getting something from the source.  He’s not going into Guitar Center and buying a drum that’s just “made in Africa.” He’s actually seeing that there’s a direct interaction between what he wants and what’s actually going to happen on the ground.  So that’s kind of our idea of the connection between the consumer and the artisans. 

Eliot: I’m sure, over time, it will develop that certain people become fans of a particular artisan.

Marco: That is one great thing about the artists we have developed relationships with. When you’re looking on our site, you see that there is definitely a wide-range of styles that attract different types of consumers. The art really represents aspects of life in Africa. When you’re looking at some of the tapestries, you’re seeing aspects of village life, or you’re seeing masks that are from a particular area, or you’re buying drums that are traditionally made. They’re not “Phillips-head screwdriver” drums with synthetic heads. They’re made with resources from Mali and Senegal, and they are constructed there. These tapestries that we have, they’re made with dye that comes from the earth; it comes from Africa. When you buy a tapestry, you’re getting dirt from Africa in the dye on your tapestry. In a way, they captivate a glimpse of Africa. For people that have traveled in Africa and are back in the US, we can provide something that reminds them of their experience. But also, say, in the context of a classroom, we have a way to share a piece of Africa that youth might not experience otherwise. And then we also have customers who just want to decorate their homes with something that’s different. 

Eliot: What is the long-term plan for Universal Drum?

Marco: We’ve been basically thinking about two things. One is better direction of ordering by developing a pre-purchasing system. Right now, all the stuff on our website, we already have in stock in the US. If somebody orders it, we can ship it and they’ll get it in a few days. One thing we’ve been talking about is, rather than that model, where we end up holding on to a lot of inventory, we could focus on 3-5 some specific items that we might interest a wider range of consumers. We could get the word out that we were going to order these items, and people can identify what they might want. This would also give them the opportunity for customization as well. So, if you were interested in buying a drum, you can also specify what kind of design you want. Do you want a map of Africa? Do you want a dedication? Somebody could say, “I want ‘Happy Birthday Eliot’ on the drums.”  This would give us an opportunity to purchase and ship from Africa products that people here really want to buy. 

The other direction which we’re thinking is we’d really like to find stores, whether larger, chain-type stores or more local venues through which to sell our products. This is what we’ve been doing here in Boston. We’d like to find store fronts that are interested in buying bulk orders and then they’re the ones selling the individual items. We’d then be making the link for a store in the US to the products in West Africa. So those are kind of two ideas that are out there. In the meantime, we’re doing business through www.universaldrum.net and doing festivals locally. 

Eliot: What is the turnaround? If you order a drum from West Africa, how long does it take to have it shipped?

Marco: We make an order of drums and it takes probably 4 or 5 weeks or so before we receive it here.  A lot of time goes towards construction of the drums and then it takes a week or so to ship them.  If we were to order just one, we could probably get it in three weeks, but it ends up not being that cost-effective so we end up ordering about 5 drums at a time.  That’s the thing with the personalized orders. In the US we are used to going on Amazon.com and buying something and getting it in three days or even tomorrow, if you want.  Everything is pretty accessible.  That’s something that might hinder us. It is time consuming to get the products over here. 

Eliot: I was going to say I’m pretty impressed with the price lines you have. For the hand-made, direct business model you have, the prices are pretty much what I’ve seen for quality instruments.

Marco: One thing that has been hard is that the people who really appreciate a nice drum are generally drummers or musicians themselves and, quite honestly, none of us are making very much money. So we’re kind of obliged to work within budgets. The people who might actually be able to spend more on a nicer handmade instrument, a djembe for example, is not going to jump out to them as to where their cash should go. 

Eliot: Can you talk a little bit about how you have incorporated art and music into your previous service?

Marco: I used to work with America SCORES, an afterschool soccer and creative writing program. One way I was able to incorporate music and arts into this program was through their winter and summer camps. For the winter camp, I did a little research in Boston and came across a Capoeira group. They came and played music, danced and taught us a little about Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art. It was cool because there were a number of Brazilian kids that were in the afterschool program. I think they got to feel a kind of connection back to Brazil. 

In the summer time, the mornings were always athletic activities, and the afternoons were focused on art and writing.  We were brainstorming ways to fill out the afternoon time, and I said, “Well, I teach African drumming.  I could invite a West African drummer who lives in Boston to come and do a session with the kids.” They thought it was a great idea, so we ended up doing a week long course. In the afternoon, the kids got to do African drumming, theatre and writing. They were in three groups that would rotate.  It was great because I’d bring the kids in, they’d sit in a little drum circle, put hand sanitizer on their hands to keep the drum heads clean and give them a ritual pre-drumming, and then the session would start. Drumming was something all of them could do at least a little bit. It really reinforced the teamwork because that was something we focused on.  So that was kind of my biggest opportunity of actually having music and working directly with kids. 

Another thing I did through World Education was work with Amadou and Mariam and a couple other artists in Mali. The musicians lent their voices and their instruments to a song promoting girls’ education. We partnered with UNICEF to put the song and some public service announcements on the radio. I included a song I had produced promoting girls’ education with Euloge Adagba in Benin on the compilation.  We would use the songs and the announcements in listening groups. A group of 20 or 30 people would come together and listen to the announcements and then talk about the song and the topic. So I’m always interested in opportunities where musicians want to use music to actually spread a specific message.

You can find out more about Universal Drum and Marco, and see the works of Moussa, Tenin and Karim, by visiting www.universaldrum.net