Drummer | Producer | Engineer

Skoota Warner is an accomplished self-taught multi-genre drummer who has shared world stages with acclaimed artists, crafted genre-bending solo projects, and produced and engineered records for up-and-coming and independent talent. 

His deep love for the craft began in childhood, and by faith and dedication, Warner has never had to do anything but live by the beat of his own drum. 

“All I’ve ever been is a musician,” he says. “By the blessings of God, I’ve never had to do anything else.” 

He’s never taken the rhythm in his wrists for granted. Warner’s professional career began early when his grandmother, who’d previously enjoyed watching him bang on her pots, gifted him a drum set at age 4. By the time he was 6, she had arranged his first gig – playing with church gospel groups. He earned his first pay at age 13, which he proudly says was converted to quarters so he could play Space Invaders with friends at the arcade. By age 14, after visiting family in New York City, the road to creating his new reality was eminently paved. 

“I came home and told my mom, ‘I know what I want to do. I don’t want to go to college. I want to go to New York and be a professional musician,’” he says. 

That move was pivotal to the career he has since built. While working as a drummer with B-boys along 5th Avenue and Central Park East, Warner’s life changed dramatically when two of Brazil’s top artists, Pepeu Gomes and Baby Do Brasil, invited him to move to Brazil as a band member. 

“And then I’ll never forget, they asked me, do you have a passport? I was a country boy. I’m like, ‘What’s that?’” he says. 

After obtaining a passport, Warner swiftly became a world-traveled musician, enjoying two years with Pepeu and Baby before returning to NYC.  

“That’s how it all started,” he says. 

Honor after honor. Tremendous opportunities stacked atop each other; Warner has experienced the true existence of being a musician. He’s been a house band member at The Apollo and backed blues musicians Johnny Copeland and Johnny Johnson. He’s played with legendary acts like Santana, The B-52’s, Lionel Richie, Cyndi Lauper, and Mary J. Blige and has shared stages with Ron Wood, Pink, Roberta Flack, and Adam Lambert. He was a house band member for The Emeril Lagasse Show. He toured with Jefferson Airplane founding members, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady of Hot Tuna fame. 

Through all the fascination and wonderment of living his dreams, he’s also nabbed some amazing life advice along the way. In 1989, he was chosen as a member of the live band for Omar Hakim’s jazz fusion project, Rhythm Deep. Observing Hakim changed Warner’s life. 

“I was addicted to his style,” he says. “I watched how he would negotiate and how he would react to people. And I learned. I watched him and said, OK, let this be the blueprint until you can find your own way. I followed his pattern to become my own success.” 

From the late guitarist Hiram Bullock, he learned passion is what’s most important in artistry. The lesson Bullock left with him is to play music because you love it, not because you want to make a lot of money. 

“If you get in the music business because you love it, you’ll mess around and make a lot of money,” Bullock told him. 

And so, he treasures his gift and all it’s given him – the dreams, his career, but especially the feeling. 

“The gift of making people dance – it’s just a feeling,” he says. “It’s tapping into the ancestors, and I just fall in. It’s a movement, a body. It’s a whole movement.”

After years of living outside the South, marrying a Louisiana woman brought Warner to New Orleans. Since 2015, he’s not only called the Crescent City home but reveled in it and ingratiated the vibes into his music. 

“My groove has changed,” he says. “I call it Southern Fried Funk. The groove is very deeply rooted.” 

Mixing that Southern Fried Funk with what he’d picked up in New York and Brazil, even combining it with the time he spent in his grandmother’s kitchen, is the recipe for the genre-bending he’s become known for. 

“It’s how you create new genres,” he says. “That’s how you keep moving the genre forward –let’s push the boundary.” 

Since the ‘90s, Warner has released two solo projects, NGA Style and Vignettes. His solo album, “Noir”, self-produced, mixed, and mastered at his studio, New Bridge Recording, is out now streaming on all platforms.