Southfield A&T marching band participates in ‘Silence the Violence’ Battle of the Bands

SOUTHFIELD — Forever Illustrating Real Entertainment — F.I.R.E. — partnered with The Church of Messiah, Seize the Smoke and four metro Detroit schools for the 2025 “Silence the Violence” Battle of the Bands. The event was dedicated to encouraging youth to pick up instruments instead of weapons.

The event took place April 12 at Center  Line Preparatory Academy, with marching bands from  Southfield A&T High School, Chandler Park Academy, Oak Park High School and River Rouge High School participating in the Battle of the Bands.

Southfield A&T took home third place in the Battle of the Bands event and won the Best Percussion award. Chandler Park Academy came in second place, with River Rouge taking first place. River Rouge also won the Best Auxiliary award.

The event also featured special performances by the Levey Middle School marching band, Eminence Dance Company and the Wilberforce University “Hounds of Sound” marching band.

“We try to use music to take kids off the street. Let’s give them something of value, something that they can use lifelong, something that can also help them get to college and be productive citizens,” LaShawn Gary, who is the band director for the Southfield AT&T Marching Warriors, said of the event.

From Gary’s perspective, the event is also an opportunity to “ highlight our fine arts departments, highlight our music departments within those schools, and show, ‘Hey we can all be together.’”

Gary shared that it has been a busy year for the 100-piece marching band. The A&T Marching Warriors received first-place recognition for their performance in the 98th America’s Thanksgiving Parade, marched in the Essex Parade and the Amherstburg Parade in Canada, and participated in the “Buck Down, Sticks Up Dance & Drumline Competition” at Ecorse High School, where the Royal Heat Dancers, Fierce Flag Dancers and Chaotic Funk Drumline all won first place.

Joey Donaldson, the founder and president of F.I.R.E, explained that this was the nonprofit’s biggest event since it was founded in 2009 to keep kids involved in music when schools were cutting funding for the arts.

“I’m not worried about me because I know I’ll always be OK, but I do worry about some of them (the kids), so that’s why I do what I do. So the Silence the Violence Battle of the Bands, this was by far one of the toughest and most expensive challenges I took on,” Donaldson said of the event.

He explained that the event cost around $18,000 to put on, and instead of purchasing a new car or fixing his roof, he put money towards putting on the Battle of Bands.

“I work to support what I do with the kids, so my nine-to-five really takes care of this. So, for F.I.R.E., it’s been like 16-17 years. We get a couple donations here and there, but I work my nine-to-five to pay for most of the stuff that we do,” said Donaldson, who works as a peer professional at Levey Middle School, where his mentor, Jeffrey Smith, is the band director.

Donaldson, 48, shared more about his mentor.

“My father passed when I was 10 years old,” he said. “I met Mr. Smith when I was 14 years old, and ever since, he’s been standing in that gap as a mentor (and) father-figure. … I’m 48 now. So ever since I was 14, he’s been there, encouraging me, working with me, teaching me music.”

Donaldson explained that his church — Church of Messiah in Detroit — started the “Silence the Violence” as a parade in 2007 to honor those whose lives were lost to violent crimes.

“The original parade (was) to honor those that died and lost their lives in violent crimes. That’s that’s what this is about. Well, we had people in our band, in our music community, that lost their lives as well,” he said. “That’s why we decided to branch that out into a battle of the bands, and it just showed different people from different areas, from different communities, coming together and standing against violence.”

F.I.R.E was founded by Donaldson in 2009 as a response to budget cuts in local school systems that led to cutting arts and music funding.

“Around 2006 or 2007 is when the city started closing down the arts programs, drama, (and) all the music programs. … And those kids started falling back into the gangs and the drugs and different things like that. So what I did was to keep their interest going, I started a drumline,” Donaldson said.

Due to the expensive price of instruments, he couldn’t afford to buy new drums, so he decided to get creative and repurpose old drum kits found in trash heaps and donated drums that were taking up space in garages. Using contact paper, Donaldson covered them so the blemishes wouldn’t be visible.

The drumline consisted of around 14 participants in the early days of F.I.R.E. Donaldson reflected on how the nonprofit shifted into a mentorship program for the youth.

“It was a bonding moment — us putting the drums together, us practicing together,” he said. “Then we went further, to, well, ‘If you don’t keep your academics up, then your parents are not (going to) want to let you play if your academics are suffering.”

Donaldson shared that in 2015, someone named Al approached him with the idea of expanding into a full marching band with more instruments. Donaldson told the gentleman that the chances of getting more instruments was slim due to how expensive they were to purchase.

A week later, he got a call from Al, who told him that he had collected an assortment of 20 instruments for the kids to play by asking around at church and his community. A few weeks later, he brought Donaldson more donated instruments for the kids to play.

“The first day of practice that we held, we had like 87 people,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson shared one of his aspirations.

“My goal is more than just a marching band,” he said. “My personal goal is to open up a community center, a family center, (where) I can help not only those young students and individual musicians, but I can help the whole family (by) doing things like a community garden, doing etiquette classes, teaching them different skills.”

For more information on F.I.R.E, visit www.motorcityonfire.com or contact Donaldson at motorcityheat@gmail.com. The organization is currently running a fundraiser to take F.I.R.E musicians to Cedar Pointe this summer as a reward for their academic success.

To learn more or to make a donation, visit www.facebook.com/p/Forever-Illustrating-Real-Entertainment.