Choclatt Jared and his band have played their bucket drums on The Grammy Awards, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Late Show with David Letterman, and Saturday Night Live — and in movies with Mel Gibson and Sharon Stone. Later this year he will appear in the movie Breaking Brooklyn, with Lou Gossett, Jr.
A self-taught musician who honed his skills on the streets of Harlem, he was one the creators of four-time Tony Award-winning Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk. He jump-started his musical life at age 14, in 1990 — the height of the crack epidemic — working his magic on streets located near subway lines.
“We would get our buckets from crack heads,” he said in a May 2014 interview on Conversations with Allan Wolper. “We would pay them $3 a bucket. They would get them from dumpsters, construction sites and restaurants.”