After supporting Rihanna at the Super Bowl, drummer with Howard ties heads to Baltimore on Janet Jackson's tour

May 8—Though he has toured with some of the biggest names in the music industry in venues across the world, Mike Reid still regularly plays drums at Celebration Church at Columbia.

Playing the drums at the Howard County church for the past 20 years has kept him humble, he says.

"I feel like one of the superpowers I have is to be able to do the Super Bowl and to be able to do Janet Jackson and to play for some of the top-tier artists and travel the world because of the foundation I have at home, which is through that church," Reid said.

Traveling since mid-April with Jackson's "Together Again" tour to Atlanta, Kansas City, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Reid will play for a hometown crowd May 13 at CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore.

"It's like a homecoming moment because you have family that comes out to see you and you have people that you love that can come to your hometown show," he said. "We give so much to the world because you travel a lot overseas to other countries, so to be able to spread love through the gift of music in your hometown, it's just one of those moments where it's a lot to take in."

As a child growing up in Baltimore, Reid, 36, of Owings Mills, said he had no idea his love for drumming would become his career.

He learned to play at the age of 3, at his grandfather's church, St. John Christian Community Church in Baltimore. The son of a pianist and a singer, Reid said his love for music came naturally.

"I was basically raised up in the church and when I was kid, you couldn't take the drumsticks out of my hands," he said.

In middle school, he participated in To Work In Gaining Skills, a free after-school arts program for students at Baltimore School for the Arts, where he learned to read music.

At 13, he had the opportunity to play at a blues festival in Switzerland, where he received his first paycheck for playing. That's when he figured out he could play the drums professionally.

"That was the first time I had ever gotten paid money for playing an instrument and just doing what I did since I was [a kid]," he said. "That's when I realized, you can do what you love to do and get money, so that's when it hit me."

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At 16, he got the opportunity to travel to Canada to fill in for drummer Erik Tribbett playing with singer/songwriter Vivian Green. That led to a meeting with Emmy Award-winning music director and Grammy Award-winning writer Adam Blackstone, who serves as musical director for a number of artists, including Alicia Keys, Eminem, Maroon 5, Janet Jackson and Rihanna.

"That's when it really started for me as a professional working in music," he said.

Two decades later, he has backed up Keys, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Demi Lovato and Eminem, among others. He also worked as the house band drummer for Fox's "The Four," and played during March For Our Lives, the 2015 BET Awards and the 2017 Soul Train Awards.

Playing in February at Rihanna's Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show was one of the highlights of his career, he said.

"The Super Bowl environment, that was just a life-changing experience," he said. "I started doing [this] because it was a love, but to actually see it come into fruition like that and to be on one of the biggest stages in the world, that was one of the biggest moments of my life."

Jaret Baker of Woodstock has served as the director of music and arts at Celebration Church for 13 years. He said Reid brings world-class drumming skills as well as a pleasant personality to the church's music ministry.

"[Reid] is an excellent, top musician, but he's just as great a person and a professional as well," he said. "Being able to be a good person as well as being a great professional, he's as top-notch as a drummer as he is in those categories."