He’s the master of his domain
Bust’s Person of the Week
By Busta Brown
“I remember one time I was playing the drums at a church in South Carolina, while my dad was preaching, and delivering this guy from a bad spirit. It was going on for hours and hours. All of a sudden I hear people saying stop, stop, and I asked what happened, why are we not still playing? Then this man came into the church and walked up to my dad and said, hey I know you, and my dad was like, you know me, you came looking for me.”
As 10-year-old Patrick Usher Jr. continued sharing his experience, chills began to go through my body, yet he stayed cool and calm, and smiling as well. He seemed to enjoy sharing his experience.
“I didn’t know if he had a gun and was going to shoot up the church or something. His eyes was getting big, then he said, the Lord sent me here to deliver all the prostitutes and sinners. His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his sockets.” As he was telling that part of his experience, Patrick Jr. began to laugh, and he made me laugh as well, but he became serious as he described how cool and calm his dad handled the situation. “After my dad saw him acting like that, he knew it was an evil spirit. He said the devil used the man as a distraction from the guy that he was delivering.”
Patrick Louis Usher Jr. is currently a part of the percussion staff of Ishi Pentecostal Temple in Winston- Salem, where his father Dr. Patrick L. Usher is the senior pastor. His mother, Marviette Usher, said “We use to call him PJ for Patrick Jr., but when he got older, he wanted us to call him Patrick.”
I asked Marviette to share something funny about the 10-year-old master drummer. “His is an impersonator. At our home, he’s impersonated every performer from Elvis, James Brown, to Michael Jackson; he has the wigs and clothes to match. He does the whole performance.”
Patrick Jr. said he began playing the drums at “2 years old, and I remember taking it serious at about 6.” He watched YouTube videos of his favorite drummer, Tony Royster, who also began playing at a very young age as well. Royster has been touring with Jay-Z and other mega stars since the age of 12, and Usher is well on his way to do the same, “even bigger.” At the age of 5, he told his parents that he would be famous and travel as a professional drummer. He would dress up, and then ask them to pray for him prior to performing and then perform in his drum room at home as if he were in concert.
After performing he would bring his mother a list of questions, he wrote out, and would ask her to announce him coming out on the TV stage. “he would sit on his black stool and answer each of the questions I asked him” said Mrs. Usher. He said he was practicing for his TV interview when he grew up.
Patrick’s parents spend time speaking about the importance of embracing how God created him and who he created him to be, his dad said. “He entrusted you with such an anointed and gifted talent that not everyone has and definitely not the average child.”
His dream is to continue to craft his God-given talent of drumming, eventually performing before millions of people. He has had no formal lessons; therefore, he strongly believes that he is anointed by God, gifted, talented and destined to do great things. Patrick L. Usher Jr. is now a rising fifth-grader at the Arts Based School in Winston-Salem. During his third-grade year at Jefferson Elementary, he was an outstanding performer in the school’s talent show and had the opportunity to perform with COLLEGE BAND from GSO during Jefferson’s Festival. Additionally, while he was a student at Calvary Baptist Day School, he often performed in their musical programs, as early as Pre-K. He also had the privilege to be selected to participate in the National Black Theatre Festival Youth Talent Showcase in 2015.
Make sure you check out more of my interview with Patrick Jr. and see how gifted he is on the drums. Go to our YouTube.com channel @ Winstonsalem Chronicle.
