Like Jumangi’s resonating rhythms, it sucks them right into the center. The warm, natural vibrations of one man’s drum guides blind students safely across Freeport Boulevard, drawing them by ear toward City College’s Quad.

It’s at this watery center that a half-Jamaican, half-Watusi tribal student sits playing his doumbek drum, cross-legged, steadfast, sometimes shirtless.

“He is the driving force for students and the baseline for the fountain,” says Jose Martinez, 20, a music major. A chemistry student and seeker of “discrete” knowledge, De’Shawn Clark is popularly recognized as The General, who dissociates into his private “realm of algorithms and base foundations” while
playing primitive doumbek sounds that have called out to students since August.

Besides The General, other musicians mingling at the Quad call him “mysterious,” “intriguing” and “the man who spews out short philosophical answers.” Clark, also spotted jamming in Old Sacramento and at local drum circles, says he’s a protective person and refuses to share his age for reasons that also remain unknown.

“I’m not 17 and not 21. I could be 12,” Clark says, often dressed in all black, his sharp eyes hiding behind tinted shades. It is not because his mind is lacking that he cannot hold normal conversations, Clark explains, but it is because his mind is present to such an intense and unequivocal extent.

“At times I don’t know where I am because I am only feeling the vibrations and seeing the frequencies come off the drum every time I hit it,” Clark says.

As a soundtrack to their school days, students value the stress-relief that Clark inspires while playing malfuf, a rhythm popular in Middle-Eastern music.

“It’s an energy you want to be around,” says Jocelyn Montelongo, 20, a psychology major. “It’s always nice exiting a building to hear the music. I always end up sitting at the Quad and getting my homework done there.”

As students swarm the fountain, drafting essays, kicking a Hacky Sack to beladi beats, Clark says he ensures that it is only intelligence that surrounds him at all times.

“He sees religious beliefs as weaknesses to rip apart and exploit,” says his best friend Michael Watt, 25, a computer programming and electronic engineering major.

At least that was after Clark survived high school, or what he refers to as his Dark Ages, when he was bombarded by ignorance and identified as an indigo child.

“Now I do whatever I want because I know I am free, for freedom is skill-based and I have skill,” Clark says.

Much of that skill he owes to almost two years of being Watt’s apprentice. “De’ has an innate professive talent,” says Watt, a drummer of nine years. “He’s very at home with rhythms. He can work multiple dimensions simultaneously.”

Now before students, Clark and Watt battle, muscles contracting, palms flailing. Even the busiest student skateboarding late to class skids to a halt at the brutal scene. But it’s the brutality of a battle with drums, of course.

In a musical language exclusive to hand-drummers, they challenge each other to variant beats and crack non-verbal jokes against copper doumbeks.

“Everything is a chess battle or a mini war. I’m always at war with myself,” Clark says, lounging in his porch as night rain pours. “I’m moving forward into my future, never being pushed back or halted. I am a warrior. Great, now I sound like a scary guy,”

To all of us,” Montelongo says, “He is the calling.”