Savion Glover will bring his drum set and tap shoes to the Dakota

Savion Glover is bringing his drum kit to the Dakota next week. Wait! Isn’t he the revolutionary tap dancer? Yeah, but …

“I was playing the drums before I attempted to express myself through the dance. My mom signed me up for classes,” Glover said. “Just bringing it full circle, one would say.”

He’s bringing “Project 9 Featuring Savion Glover” for two nights to downtown Minneapolis. It’s only the second performance by the ever-evolving group that was conceived about a year and a half ago.

“It’s my latest attempt at articulation of expression,” he said this week. “My intent here is to maintain a particular sound that would allow the ancestral mystical codes to be known through this sound, not labeling it any kind of genre. Either have people rock out or enjoy the movement.”

Although Glover ceased drum lessons at age 11 when he pursued tap, he never stopped drumming or self-studying percussion.

In Project 9, Glover will be the lead percussionist as well as tap dancer. The group includes a vocalist and three other musicians performing Glover compositions.

He says it might be a 50/50 proposition between drumming/dancing, but he’s open to improvising and maybe adding a guest musician or so. He’ll listen to his collaborators but get lost in his performance.

What goes through his mind when performing?

“Everything, anything, anything, anything, anything — from the initial goal to honor the educators, honor the dance, honor my mother, honor the existence I am,” he said. “Allow the listeners to hear the dance more intellectually than they might be able to see it.”

Glover, who grew up in Newark, N.J., rose to fame as a tap dance wunderkind, landing on Broadway at age 11. He studied with the legends, including Jimmy Slyde, Sammy Davis Jr. and Gregory Hines. At age 14, Glover was himself teaching kids. A year later, he earned a Tony nomination for “Black and Blue,” and he won a Tony in 1996 for best choreography for “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk,” in which he also starred and traveled the country.

Among his extensive credits, Glover has appeared in music videos with Barbra Streisand, Puff Daddy and Kenny G, and he has performed at the Grammy Awards, the Academy Awards and Winter Olympics closing ceremony. He has recorded with Prince, Abbey Lincoln and Talib Kweli and performed with, among others, vocalist extraordinaire Bobby McFerrin (including at the Orpheum in Minneapolis in 2004) and jazz drummer Marcus Gilmore (at the Dakota in 2017).

In a phone conversation, Glover, 50, talked about influences — be it tap dancers, hip-hop artists or great jazz drummers Roy Haynes and Jack DeJohnette. He tends to speak on a philosophical plane with conceptual terms.

“Everything that is a sound has influenced my approach. In the ‘70, ‘80s, ‘90s up until now, me being who I am and where I’m from, hip-hop, gospel music and then everything from rock ‘n’ roll to whatever was highly influential whether it was in the home or in the atmosphere. It has been embedded in me, so I am part of hip-hop. It’s heavy. As all sound is heavy.”

He worked with Prince, but it was not what Glover expected. Of course, it wasn’t. It was Prince, as unpredictable as ever.

In 1996, the Purple One sent Glover a song called “Emale.” When the dancer arrived at a Manhattan studio to record his tap rhythm, Prince was on the phone. They were going to record a different song, “Joint 2 Joint.” Glover listened to it, lyrics and all.

“It was rather put together,” said Glover, not irked by the bait and switch. “I thought it was great. It was three movements and to be part of one of the movements was awesome.”

The lyrics were a combination of the sexually suggestive and the playful. For instance, Prince talks about munching Cap’n Crunch cereal with soy milk.

Did Glover ever eat that?

“I’ve given that up,” he confessed with a giggle. “When I was youthful, sure.”

While Glover sat on the side of the stage at a Prince concert, they never performed together in front of an audience. They did team up on soundtracks for a couple of Spike Lee films, “Bamboozled” and “Happy Feet.”

As with Prince, Lee reeled in Glover with one idea and switched to a different one. The dancer appreciated the mysteriousness.

“Their approach to sacredness or privacy, they know who to choose or who would enjoy the journey,” the dancer said. “I would imagine these kind of thinkers are bored out of their minds. They have nothing else to do except for having fun in ways that professionals would think ‘this is unprofessional.’ I enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy. I live for it.”

Glover has often been described as fearless.

“I didn’t know there was an option not to be. I don’t know what fear is,” he explained. “There are many words attempting to describe existence but these words have very little to do with the being. Those are words I’d associate with the personality. Fearless and gullible. These are interpretations of what someone else would say about me or you. I don’t know that I’m fearless.”

So how would he describe himself?

“I’d describe myself as the ultimate proof that my mother walked the Earth.”

When: 7 p.m. Thu. and Fri.

Where: The Dakota, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.

Tickets: $50-$70, dakotacooks.com