Ricardo Brown had done everything he’d needed in order to march with a World Class drum corps.

He caught the bug at a Drum Corps International Tour event in the summer of 1997, in Hampton, Virginia. He’d gone back to “the band show” again in 1998, growing further entranced with ensembles like Blue Devils, Bluecoats, and particularly, The Cadets. As a young Black man, he’d been especially inspired by the performance of one of the night’s soloists, Bluecoats’ Kenny Ragland.

That night, Brown felt the wave that thousands of young people have experienced prior to starting their drum corps journey.

He was hooked.

“It was at that moment that I made my mind up,” he said. “I would one day be a part of the great Cadets lineage.”

Through a rigorous multi-corps audition process — at the time, The Cadets were one of several drum corps under the same organizational umbrella, so auditions were a joint endeavor with other nearby groups like Crossmen and Boston Crusaders — he’d earned a rating that qualified him for a spot with his dream corps.

When it came time to fund his dream, though, Brown was left at an impasse.

Thankfully, though, Brown hadn’t experienced auditions alone; he’d been joined throughout the process by his friend, Aaron Brown, who had received an opportunity to march with the Crossmen.

Aaron’s parents made a point to ensure Ricardo had the same opportunity.

“(Aaron’s) parents were like, ‘Hey, we know you don't have the resources to make it back and forth to camp’ — I mean, I was a broke high school student,” Brown said. “So, they decided that they were going to sponsor me with transportation. They got me to all the camps. That included, a couple times, taking the train to camp from Virginia to Delaware. They bought all of my plane tickets, and they got me home from Finals in Buffalo that year.”

With that generous offer, a pebble was dropped in the water. It was impossible to know then how far it would reach.

It’s still rippling 20 years later.

“It was just through the grace of good people wanting to do something for this kid from Portsmouth, Virginia,” Brown said. “That one act of kindness led me to where I am now in my career.”


“Be better than."

That’s always been Brown’s mentality when presented with challenges. In the face of difficulty and adversity, Brown’s approach is to rise above.

He describes his five-year drum corps experience in a multitude of ways, but arguably the most eye-catching dichotomy is that of “up-and-down” as compared to “life-changing.” Brown noted his time in drum corps as being both.

Brown stood toe-to-toe with circumstances that easily, and quite understandably, could have broken his resolve and his dreams of performing in the drum corps activity. He noted examples of bullying, largely on the basis of his race that impacted the early stages of his marching career.

“Especially in the spaces where it was predominantly white,” Brown said, “I always felt like I was looked down upon.”

Be better than, he’d say.

Brown had to rise above not only the actions of others, but also the implicit biases of others. It took more to get ahead. It took more to prove himself.

He knew from the get-go in his first drum corps season that he had the chops to play with the best of the best in his trumpet section, yet he found himself placed on the third trumpet part

At his first rehearsal camp, Brown wasn’t afforded the opportunity to audition for lead trumpet. “They instantly put me on third soprano, because I had never marched the corps-style before, and they assumed, they see this 16-year-old kid, ‘He’s a third trumpet player. Go play third.’”

Now, when push came to shove, Brown did end up as a lead trumpet player. But it only happened by chance.

Brown had briefly found space to himself in a school’s underground auxiliary gym to break away and spend time with his instrument. And as he put it, he pulled out his trumpet, and just started wailing.

“The guy that was running the horn line at the time just so happened to hear me down there playing all these high notes,” Brown said. “And he was like, ‘Holy crap, that kid can play.’ So, they gave me a chance to audition on lead soprano, and I was on that for the rest of that season.”

“It was always that type of mentality, man,” he added. “I'm not going to let anybody tell me what my self worth is. I know what my self worth is. And I know what I can do."


From there, Brown continued to put in the work to prove his merit. He’d always wanted to perform with The Cadets, so starting in 2001, he went out and did it, earning not only a spot in the corps’ trumpet section, but featured roles as well throughout his four seasons with the Allentown corps.

During one of those four seasons, Brown had “the talk.” He still remembers it to this day.

During his time at The Cadets, Brown developed pivotal relationships with two strong brass educators of color, Frank Williams and Errick Prince, the latter of which was on staff at The Cadets. Nearly 20 years since his age-out season, he still views both of those men as influential mentors.

It was Prince who ultimately sat Brown down and instilled in him groundbreaking wisdom — wisdom that, according to Brown, is commonly passed down from Black instructors to Black marching members.

“No matter what,” Brown recounted Prince saying, “you have to be better to be considered equal to. I don't care about your past experiences. You have an opportunity to be great here, and it's up to you to seize it. Wake up every day, be prepared, and work hard."

“That's the drum corps talk,” he added.

At the time, Brown shared, representation wasn’t exactly something he saw all over the place in the drum corps activity. He was grateful even to just have connections with instructors like Williams and Prince, Black men in leadership roles to whom he could look up to.

According to Brown, having an educator on staff who was Black, in Prince, was a first in his drum corps career.

“When I got to The Cadets, I got my first Black instructor — you know, somebody who looked like me, teaching at this level,” he said.

Ultimately, Brown described the effects of that lack of representation as a form of pressure — a pressure to uphold the highest of standards and set an example, to go above and beyond expectations, to leave no doubt, and in doing so, pave out a level playing field that ought to already be level.

There’s a pressure, Brown says, to be better than.

“As African Americans in DCI, we know the struggles we will face not seeing many people who look like us, on the field as well as in leadership and administrative positions,” he said. “So, we wear the weight of being a stellar representation of our community, hoping that others who come behind us will be looked at as equals and be able to experience this activity that gave us so much."


Brown’s experience is his own, and it’s unique to him. But it’s by no means uncommon in many aspects. His stories highlight the many challenges of the Black experience, whether it be in drum corps, the arts as a whole, or even just greater society.

And while he describes the marching music activity today as vastly improved in many regards compared to the one he experienced in the early 2000s, Brown — now working as the co-caption head of the Sacramento Mandarins’ brass section — knows there are areas where the drum corps community can continue to improve on creating a more equitable environment.

“I would love to see DCI continue to grow,” he includes. “This includes the diversity of musical selections and show design, diversity of corps leadership from the corps director, to show designers, all the way down to the brass, drum, and color guard caption heads, and continued outreach to communities of students who would otherwise be overlooked.”

For one, he’s worked directly with programs in the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) community, and he’s seen firsthand the kind of astounding and enlivening work done by such ensembles on football fields and in stands.

The “show-style” made popular by HBCU band programs is, in some senses, noticeably different from the “corps-style” approach many drum corps take in performance.

But in many ways, as Brown puts it, it’s even better. Whether one’s taste is more geared toward corps-style productions or the energetic and exciting show-style, it’s impossible to deny the kind of audience impact generated by HBCU bands’ performances all over the country.

That’s no slight to drum corps, but the atmosphere of and HBCU performance is a sight to behold. And there’s an intersection there that Brown sees as paramount to the growth of the marching arts community.

“DCI Finals, you know, they’re attracting 20,000, 30,000 people a year,” Brown said. “HBCUs, the Honda Battle of the Bands, fills a whole stadium, both sides. They literally have to play to both sides so that the fans can feel like they're getting an experience. We're talking about 50,000- and 60,000-person stadiums. So, there's definitely something there that we can borrow from.”

And ultimately, as Brown says, when it comes to improving, growing and evolving as a community, it’s simply about putting in the work and making a concerted effort.

“If we say we truly want diversity, and we really want DCI to move forward and grow, then the resources are going to have to be put into these places where we say we want to grow,” Brown said. “I think DCI has committed to doing that. So, I'm really anxious to see where that goes.”