AbeThompson

Biography

Abe Thompson grew up in New Orleans' Desire neighborhood and took up the drums at ten years old, learning by watching his brothers play. He was in bands in his teens alongside classmates at George Washington Carver High School, then went on to Southern University at New Orleans, where he studied under saxophonist Edward "Kidd" Jordan and earned his B.A. in music — part of the same SUNO generation as players like Carl LeBlanc and Julius Handy.

After school, Thompson's career carried him about as far from New Orleans as a drummer can get: he spent some three decades playing abroad in Taiwan. He has been back home since the 2010s.

Back in New Orleans — where he is also known as Nbugu Kenyatta — Thompson founded and leads the Doctors of Funk, a band built largely from fellow SUNO musicians, and he fronts three other groups besides: ARRK-TU, the Kenyatta Trio, and the Kenyatta Funksters. The Doctors of Funk have played the New Orleans Jazz Museum repeatedly in recent years and held down dates at the Market Cafe in the French Market.

In October 2026 he released After the Storm (is Life) — six of his own songs, some of them written across a span of fifty years, in a gospel-rooted funk and soul setting. The record was cut at Marigny Studios in New Orleans, produced and arranged by trombonist Evan Oberla with grant support from the Threadhead Cultural Foundation, and it features singers Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph and Kayla Jasmine. Thompson tells his own story plainly in the songs: "Flatline" and "A Stroke of Grace" recount, in the first person, the medical emergencies he survived — a heart that gave out, a stroke — and the faith that carried him through. The album was celebrated with a release show at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.