Beyoncé’s blue-haired Renaissance tour drummer is from Johnson County. 10 things to know

Diamond Johnson was asked once in an interview to name his favorite city in the United States, other than Los Angeles because he lives there.

The professional drummer didn’t miss a beat.

Kansas City.

Robert “Diamond” Johnson — just Diamond now — graduated from Gardner Edgerton High School in Johnson County. This weekend he’s coming home to finish what has been unquestionably the most important gig of his musical career.

Johnson, 27, has been playing drums in Beyoncé’s band on her Renaissance World Tour, a 56-show excursion that began in May in Stockholm and wraps up Sunday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.

That’s his name there, in black and white, listed in the tour credits.

Drums. Diamond Johnson.

The band is small and tight. Only eight people. They’re called Silver Horse, an apparent reference to the giant glittery horse Beyonce sings atop at each show.

“When I was in Kansas City my only goal was to come out to L.A. and be a big drummer,” Johnson said in a 2022 interview.

The most recent photos on his Instagram are from the tour, from Stockholm and Poland to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Music reviewers have hailed the band, noting Johnson’s “cavernous drum sound” in SoFi (per Variety) and how he “effortlessly recreated the incessant pulse” of “Run the World (Girls)“ in New Orleans, according to Nola.com.

“Diamond Johnson has accomplished so much in his young 25 years,” actress/comedian Antoinette Peragine said of him two years ago while interviewing him. “He’s worked with the best and his star is on the rise.”

Peragine described how she was “blinded by his light” when she met Johnson in 2021 at the Hollywood Palladium where he was working as musical director of a Kid Laroi concert.

“I feel like this is the action period of my life. I gotta do a lot of work,” Johnson told her. “I see myself maximizing the gift of drums and eventually phasing out to doing business full-time.”

But, he added, “I’m always going to play drums.”

In early September Johnson opened Make Spaces, photo and music studios for rent in downtown Los Angeles

“Never stop dreaming, never stop believing, never stop doing the work,” he exhorted fellow artists in an Instagram post announcing the business. “I just played SoFi Stadium last night, 70,000-seater venue, after living in L.A. for four years.

“And then the next morning I’m up here at Make Spaces, my new building in downtown L.A. Anything is possible. Anything. Keep going. Plan. Make it happen.”

Here are 10 things to know about Beyonce’s drummer, including the importance of skin care.

▪ “He started banging on things at 2,” his mother/cheerleader, Deidre Johnson-Dixon, told The Star in January 2013. “Everything was fair game — his leg, my leg, the leg of the dresser in his bedroom. He air-drummed, too. Crazy-good.”

▪ He grew up in a “very Christian home” and thought his natural path was to be a pastor. “I always felt on the inside that I would be doing great things, but I never knew it would be like this or going in this direction,” he told Peragine.

▪ He grew up around music at church and at home; both parents sang. But he never had a formal drum lesson. “My first drum set was a red Yamaha at age 5,” he told The Star when he was a high school junior and a finalist in a national drumming competition.

“And then my uncles stepped in. They all play different instruments and genres of music. Uncle Cortez started working with me when I was 10 on all facets of the drums.

“Playing drums is a true art. When you feel the drums, the people listening to you hopefully feel them, too.”

▪ In high school he toured the country twice with the Kansas City alternative rock band Beautiful Bodies.

▪ He moved to L.A. when he was 22 after getting what he considered a sign from God one night while parked in a field in the Northland near Kansas City International Airport where his parents were living.

Looking up at the sky he asked God for a sign. Should he move to California?

“I kid you not, there is this huge green flash coming from the sky and I’m like ‘that’s way too obvious. That’s a movie.’ I’m looking around for planes, my eyes are watering,” he said. “Every week since I moved has been a validation of that night.”

▪ His drumming idol is Brian Frasier Moore, who has performed with Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson, Madonna and a litany of other stars.

▪ One of his first gigs in California was in a music video. “You got the look,” the guy who got him the job told him. Johnson joked with Peragine that for music video casting calls, his Rihanna “Fenty skin care routine, it’s coming in handy.”

▪ He believes connections are imperative. His third day in L.A. he ran into Dammo Farmer, a music director whose resume included working with Jay-Z, Usher — and Beyoncé. “I’m putting you on everything because I want to work with more good people,” Farmer told him.

Farmer is one of two music directors on the Renaissance tour.

▪ His hair is Tiffany & Co. blue. He had dropped the dye but fans begged him to bring back the blue.

▪ Taylor Swift is ... “talented,” Johnson told Peragine, filling in the blank space.