Omari Sadhan plays the flute during a rehearsal at the Museum of of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California.
Don't be fooled, this young man was a musician not a rapper. He looks like one in this photograph, but he was goofing off with that microphone, he just made it look like he was actually rapping.
You could immediately tell with him, even when he was seven, this dude had so much style it was ridiculous at times. With that saxophone in his hands, he walked with the swagger of a musician who knew he was good because he was, he wore those instruments like his skin he was so comfortable with them, and he was definitely comfortable in his own skin.
When Omari Sadhan was young, he started his musical journey sitting at a piano in a house growing up. He first sat down at the keys because he wanted to learn a song from a Mario game he played on Nintendo, that's how it started for him. In high school, they didn't have a piano class, so he joined band and drum line; by the time he graduated, Omari could play 3 saxophones, the flute and trumpet, drums, keyboards, and he was starting to play guitar and bass.
It's still hard to believe he's gone, looking at these feels like looking at a ghost. Fortunately but sadly, he missed out on the coronavirus, which would have freaked him out beyond belief. Omari died at the beginning of his second semester in college early in 2020 when he was struck on a highway riding his motorcycle - he had it for about a week. Exceptionally talented, he drove himself hard at those instruments which is why he made so much progress in only four years. He developed a tremendous command over the saxophone and flute in particular, which he played beautifully and ever so delicately. It's one of the hardest things to do with a woodwind instrument, to blow soft enough to activate it. Omari could do that. You'd heard this subtle puff of air for a moment before a note began to float in the atmosphere.
