Composer and singer-songwriter Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab’s Kent upbringing inspired his musical journey and helped the children’s musical “Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical” come to life. 

Gallab lived in Kent from 8th through 12th grade, before attending Ohio State University and performing under the moniker Sinkane. 

Now based in Brooklyn, New York, he is a singer, songwriter, composer and producer. Prior to the making of “Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical,” he had never composed music specifically for a musical. 

Directed by National Theater associate artist Emily Lim, the musical is about an enormous crocodile who plans to eat children, but other jungle creatures use their courage to try and stop his plans.

The Roald Dahl Story Company contacted Gallab and asked him if he was interested in working with them on a project. 

“I thought it was a joke. I grew up reading Roald Dahl,” Gallab said. “They made it very clear that it wasn’t a joke, and I took the meeting and they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll get back to you on what we want to do.'”

The company then gave him an option on what book he wanted to adapt into a musical.

“Then they wrote to me and said, ‘What book do you want to do,’ and I was like, ‘Well, ‘The Enormous Crocodile‘ is my favorite from growing up, so why don’t we do that?’” Gallab said. 

He began working with writer Suhayla El-Bushra, who would send him lyrics and dialogue. It was then up to Gallab to create a song.  

He also worked with music supervisor Tom Brady, who provided additional music and lyrics. 

Gallab expressed how special the songwriting process was to him because “it’s not very often that you get someone that sends you lyrics that you can be like, ‘Oh sure, let me just compose music out of the woodwork.’”

El-Bushra and him are both Sudanese, which connected them when they started working together. 

After writing five or six songs, they would share them with the crew to be analyzed if they fit the narrative of the story. Then, the crew and the cast would get together and workshop the entire show.

After performing the show to people at the Roald Dahl Story Company and the West End community, they took the notes they received and went back to the drawing board.

Preschoolers and kindergarteners also came to view the show. Gallab took note on how they reacted to the musical.

“If something was too complex for them to understand, then that was an issue. You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult for a children’s musical,” he said. “But it really is for something that has to be so clear and so clean and understandable to a four-year-old.”

It took six years of working out the narrative and switching up songs to achieve this understanding.

After seeing the show for the first time as a finished product, Gallab was overwhelmed. 

“I cried at the end. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, like the biggest project at that point in my life,” Gallab said. “Every time I watch it, it’s just very overwhelming, and I feel very proud.”

There was still work to be done to make certain moments in the musical more engaging with children in the audience. 

“It wasn’t really until probably last summer when we did our second round of shows that it felt like, ‘Okay, things are really good,’” Gallab said. “We did a lot of rewrites and tried to connect the dots where they felt like they weren’t connecting in between last summer and this summer.”

“Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical” is not Gallab’s first venture into music. During his time at Kent Roosevelt High School, he started getting involved in the music scene. 

Prior to moving to Kent when he was 14, he lived in Provo, Utah. There, he was involved in a band. 

When he moved to Kent, he started a band with friends from school called Starcross. 

They would practice as much as they could and first started playing at birthday parties. Soon, the band began playing at places like Brady’s Cafe and the Robin Hood Inn.

Gallab went to venues every weekend, such as the Grog Shop in Cleveland, to see shows. He was always either making, playing or watching music.

“Those were a lot of very formative years for me for learning how to play music and learning how to meet and connect with people that were like me,” he said. “Kent had this very vibrant scene of young kids not only playing music, but releasing their own records, and you could see them walking down the street and stuff like that.“

Seeing successful music artists like Jamie Stillman from Akron in the streets gave Gallab confidence to continue pursuing music. 

A lot of his biggest influences he grew up listening to originated in Kent, including Party of Helicopters, Harriet the Spy and Man I Fell in Love With. Music from Sudan also inspires him, such as the artists Sharhabil Ahmed and Mohammed Wardi

When he went to Ohio State, he started another band with people from Kent called Sweetheart. He began touring with that band when he was 19. 

“We had a crappy van that couldn’t go past 60 miles an hour, otherwise the Serpentine belt would break — and it did,” Gallab said. “We played house shows all over the United States every possible break from school that we had.”

That tour got him into the music circuit and connected to people across the country. After he graduated college and the band broke up, he was in a situation where he felt he could do something else or pursue music.

He started performing under the moniker Sinkane in 2007. After seeing the band Caribou at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, he gave them his demo CD. 

A few months later, they wrote back and told him they liked his record and invited him to a show. When the band’s drummer broke his wrist, they reached out to Gallab to see if he wanted to replace their drummer — he did.

“That opened me up to a very massive international network of musicians and people, all the people that I’d seen on Pitchfork or read about in Rolling Stone, all the scenes that I’d followed, I finally met all these people, became friends with them, connected with them, collaborated with them,” he said.

He later worked with other indie rock bands such as of Montreal, Born Ruffians and Eleanor Friedberger. Gallab then moved to New York, where he has been making music for 15 years. 

His advice for young artists comes from his own experiences. He encourages them to make as much music as they can to grow musically. 

“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Make as many mistakes as you possibly can, especially when you’re younger, because they’re not going to sting as much and you’re going to learn a lot more,” he said. 

Gallab takes pride in his time in Kent as it was a very important part of his upbringing. Seeing The Black Keys and other artists from the Kent and Akron area gain success inspired him.

“It makes me feel really proud to be from where I came from,” he said. “Anyone who is out here from Kent wanting to do something, I think it’s important for them to know that they can, and they should.”

“Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical” is coming to Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis from Oct. 1 to Nov. 23; the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles from Dec. 5 to Jan. 4; and The Lowry in Salford, England from Dec. 10 to Jan. 4.

Loreal Puleo is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].