Elijah Saliu, known to most as Seavelly, doesn’t look like a man about to disappear into someone else’s poem. At the Bradford African Festival of Arts, he stands slightly off to the side of the Aby Drumz and Friends ensemble.

Seavelly is, by trade, a multi-instrumentalist and producer. The experience is evident in how he plays the talking drum, accompanying other drummers to elevate the poetic rendition by the only female among them. The poem performed is titled Nkoso, a plea for Africa to keep progressing and continue celebrating the continent despite its hardships. With the Gangan (Talking Drum) tucked under his arm, Seavelly pays attention to the performance and rhythmically fills the spaces when the poet pauses between stanzas to catch her breath.

Seavelly doesn’t rush to fill the silence. He waits a half-beat longer than expected, answering with a squeeze of the drum’s underarm cords that pushes the pitch upward mid-strike. The Gangan’s voice feels almost like a spoken syllable from Seavelly, a backup vocal for the poet.

Working with other drummers playing the Djembe, Omele, and an assisting talking drum, Seavelly’s talking drum becomes the closest thing the ensemble has to a second speaking voice, one that argues and consoles in the same breath the poet has just used.

That bending pitch is the whole trick of the talking drum, and that’s where Seavelly’s touch becomes genuinely distinctive. Instead of treating the Gangan as a fixed-pitch instrument he happens to be squeezing, he shapes each tune as though it’s answering the poem directly. The rising and falling inflections spice up the percussion flows, imitating the continent’s socio-political conditions.

As is known, the talking drum is built for conversation, and Seavelly seems to understand that better than anyone else on stage. His economical touch on the drumhead does the biggest job. Small flicks of the stick, not the sweeping strikes preferred by his colleagues, create the required mood for the poem. Mid-performance, he allows a single bent note to hang and delays, almost entirely, before the next line begins. The small act of patience that does more to underline the poem’s serious messages than any earlier rendering could.

Seavelly’s shaky entrance to occupy the quietness is less assured. On two occasions, his opening squeeze arrives fractionally ahead of the singer’s final word, a habit that, paired with Aby Drumz’s own occasional early entrance in this same set, suggests the ensemble hasn’t yet fully settled its cues around the poet’s pacing.

It’s a forgivable seam in only the festival’s first outing, but a seam nonetheless, and one worth naming for failing to smooth things they are expected to smooth. There are also a handful of phrases where his pitch-bending, so expressive earlier in the set, tips into a kind of vocal mimicry that nearly obliterates earlier impressive bends and phrases on the drum.

Seavelly is a commendable inclusion to the drumming ensemble. Even with the rough edges, he plays the drum to bring rhythm and meaning to the poetry performance. The talking drum occasionally serves as a supporting speaker. When the poem reaches its final stanza, it’s difficult to say whether it is accompanying the words or completing them, which is, in the end, the highest compliment a talking drum player can earn.

Seavelly wears an outfit that looks half-ceremonial and half-street: a white native attire and a baseball cap pulled low. Merely looking at him, his dressing looks out of place. But with his command of the talking drum, it turns out to be exactly the right costume for the occasion.