From baby beatboxer to drummer of the year for south London teen

It was a long car ride back to Morden in south London on 15 February for Ellis Gates, his little brother, mum and dad.

The 16-year-old had just won this year's Zildjian Young Drummer of the Year contest, which came with a very special prize - the drum kit he competed on.

"They were packed in like boulders crushing me. It was a painful journey!" he laughs.

But he said it was "truly incredible" to win the competition at the Lighthouse in Poole, Dorset, and bring the sparkling adult-sized kit home.

The teenager impressed the panel of judges, which included Ash Soan who is the drummer for Taylor Swift, Rod Stewart, Tori Amos and Snow Patrol.

Ellis's win had just about sunk in when we spoke to him on BBC London this week.

He was sitting at the new kit, set it up in a studio in his garden.

A huge plaque was fixed to the wall declaring him as Young Drummer of the Year 2026.

The competition was in three parts: a two-minute solo; playing along to a backing track he'd learned for a month; and the final challenge accompanying a bassist and guitarist - to a piece he'd heard only three times that day.

Ellis thinks his jazz background made him stand out among his fellow contestants.

"Over the years my main focus has been jazz so bringing that style and rhythm up to the stage, they found really interesting," he said.

Ellis entered the competition last year too but didn't win, which motivated him to improve.

He had an extra incentive because the skin on the bass drum of his junior kit had a massive hole in it, which he was having to fix with tape.

Both Ellis's mum, Grace, and dad, Ben, are musical. Ellis's dad got him into jazz and first he learned to play the piano.

Grace said: "I'm a very firm believer that music will bring out a lot of good virtue in a person. You learn courage, you learn discipline, resilience."

Playing the drums was something that came naturally to Ellis who first picked up sticks at the age of two when his nan bought him a toy drum kit.

Grace already knew he would be a drummer having watched him beatboxing along to Fleetwood Mac songs.

"When he was a baby he used to shake his whole body to drum beats," she said, "he's got to be a drummer."

As soon as he was tall enough to sit at a small drum kit, Ellis started having lessons.

The first one was supposed to be 15-minutes long - he was still going an hour later and wanted more.

"Music is literally the most important thing for me ever since I was little," he said.

"You're in a particular concentration and focus when you're paying the drums. For me, I enter a flow state where I'm not actually thinking about external things. There's not a need for overthinking - or thinking at all."

Ellis attends the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy and goes to Trinity School in Croydon. His dream now is to study in New York and learn from the jazz scene there.

Meanwhile, Grace's dream is to have enough money to sound proof the garden studio to keep peace with the neighbours. The new drum kit is quite a bit louder than his old one.

Nevertheless, she said she screamed when Ellis won the competition. "And can I confess, there was a little bit of a tear there!"

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