Hello Friends, Colleagues, Comrades, Musicians, and Artists:
We are putting a CALL TO ACTION for direct support from The Creative Community to support percussionist Daryl Stewart.
He is currently being displaced from the Leland Hotel, along with 40 other residents. They were given no notice, no access to their belongings, and are still being denied clear answers.
“They said, ‘Let’s go. You have to leave,’” says Daryl Stewart, a 67-year-old artist and percussionist who has lived in the building since 2012. “We didn’t have enough time to gather our wits.”
Stewart says he was forced to leave behind artwork, laptops, and his home recording studio. Other residents lost access to clothes, medication, mementos, and other personal items. Some tenants were even separated from their pets.
“I understand the building is being condemned, but it took them forever to get the animals out,” Stewart says.
Stewart says multiple city departments arrived a few hours after the building lost electricity and ordered tenants to evacuate immediately. He says residents were initially told they would be allowed to return.
“They said we could come back.”
About Daryl:
Daryl Stewart is a father, grandfather, percussionist, an entertainer, an embodiment of Detroit funk, a dreamer, a promoter, a fighter, a Bohemian, an uncontainable spirit.
While in Atlanta, Stewart was drumming in bands like K95 (new wave/alternative), Cool Joe and the Funky Soul Symbols (original neo-soul party group), and a rockabilly band called Rooster and the Red Tops in the ‘80s through the mid-‘90s. Add in staging, lighting, and sound savvy, he was able to gain access to, work, party, and play with some of the biggest stars of our time.
He also went to art school at the Atlanta College of Art (ACA). While there, he befriended a young RuPaul.
While in Atlanta, his band Cool Joe and the Funky Soul Symbols played twenty-eight straight days surrounding the 1996 Olympics in Centennial Park and the Olympic Village. They received international acclaim for their song and video for “The Pledge,” which was released by Budweiser Beer as part of their sponsorship of the band.
Around 2007, Stewart got the call to be one of George Clinton’s drum techs and toured with Parliament Funkadelic for four years. His spirit of togetherness and friendship helped him fit right into the soulful “Funkadelic-esque” Detroit music family.
Years later, he would go on to do tech work for the Rolling Stones, The Police, and work many of the great shows that came to Atlanta or Detroit, including Janet Jackson, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, and too many to count. He produced tracks for Detroit’s Arc Singers (gospel group) like “Prayer For Peace” and “It Turned Out Right,” Billie Stylings’ “I’m All I Have,” and remixes of “The Pledge.” He produced a song and accompanying video for Liz Taylor’s “Heartstrings.”
Around 2015, Stewart miraculously survived a deadly stroke. “Daryl was in rough shape,” friend, percussionist, DJ, poet, record collector Craig Huckaby recalled. “I left him an axatse (African shaker) next to his bed and as he began to recover, he started using it. The doctors were in disbelief. Almost everyone around on his floor was practically brain dead and there’s Daryl shaking it and finding the rhythm of life.”
The rhythm of drums runs so coarsely through his veins that he was even able to push the hand of death away!
In conclusion:
We are urging the Creative Community to gather together and support this man, who has supported so many others throughout his career. It truly takes a village to keep each other safe; but many hands make lighter work!
Monetary support will surely help our friend, but ultimately he really wants to have access to his studio and art.
We are also taking this moment to urge the City of Detroit to comply with the demands of the Leland House Tenants :
Let them back into their homes!