Thomas “Taiwo” Joseph DuVall, a prominent Black Arts Movement leader, percussionist, and co-founder of the Weusi Artist Collective, died on March 30, 2025. He was 91.
DuVall was an author, artist, musician and folklorist known for his woodcuts, portraits, landscapes and book illustrations, according to his website. But, he was also known for his mastery of the Ashiko drum and his many other notable musical collaborations.
Born in Washington, D.C., he began painting at the age of four, demonstrating natural talent from an early age, becoming an entirely self-taught artist. DuVall described his artistic practice as a responsibility. “Drawing makes me feel like I am in charge of what I’m doing,” he once said, “and there is a certain amount of responsibility that goes along with that charge.”
DuVall was raised in a segregated America, but went on to become one of the first Black paratroopers in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division while serving in the Korean War.
Relocating to Harlem after his military service ended, DuVall attended numerous schools — including the City College of New York — before graduating from New York’s Pan American School of Art. In 1965, he joined 20 other artists to co-found the Weusi Artist Collective, which united a group of African American artists dedicated to using African themes and symbols in their work. Weusi opened New York City’s first African Art gallery on Harlem’s Strivers Row and continues today, as a hub for acclaimed African American artists.
DuVall’s creative pursuits spanned multiple disciplines. He was a master drummer who played with numerous talents including Babatunde Olatunji, Chief Bey, Pearl Primus, Percival Borde, Carlos Santana, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and Randy Weston.
He performed at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 and also played the Ashiko drum with Olatunji, who was signed to create the first African drumming album for Western ears called “Drums of Passion,” produced through Columbia Records in 1959.
“When I saw brother Duvall’s work,” Emmett Wigglesworth, also an original Weusi member, told the AmNews, “he worked in a kind of…if you look at it from a Western perspective, a realistic vein. But every piece, even when he did pieces where children were sitting still, you felt movement, you felt dance, you felt rhythm. When he did pieces where children were actually doing something, you could feel the dance and that movement. He was also a musician, an incredible one, and when he played the drums, you could see the extrapolation from his art to the music, and it was all one.”
DuVall authored the 2014 book “Venial Sins: An Autobiography,” and his artwork has been exhibited internationally and is part of the permanent collection at Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. As a staff artist for Third Press Publishers, he managed other graphic artists and illustrators, culminating in recognition from Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer for his integrity and artistic ability.
His diverse experiences influenced his work, often depicting memories from his childhood and community. He sought to intertwine African American folklore with broader American culture.
“I enjoy tying African American folklore into American culture by creating the experience of Africa and the Caribbean through my art,” he said.