Cindy Blackman Santana

Drummer, vocalist, and composer Cindy Blackman Santana is best known to pop music fans for her tenure with Lenny Kravitz, and her collaboration with husband Carlos Santana since 2014. She was Kravitz's touring drummer for more than a decade. Her fluid style has netted hundreds of studio credits with everyone from Jacky Terrasson and Angela Bofill to Joss Stone and Lucky Peterson. Arcane, her leader debut, was the first of four albums for Muse; these included 1992's Code Red, 1994's Telepathy, and 1996's The Oracle. She also cut three albums for HighNote, including 2001's Someday… while 2004's Music for the New Millennium offered funky post-bop. 2010's Another Lifetime was dedicated to mentor Tony Williams' Lifetime and was followed by another tribute to Williams, 2012's Spectrum Road, alongside Vernon Reid, Jack Bruce, and John Medeski. Her solo album Give the Drummer Some appeared in 2020. In 2026 she returned with the Mack Avenue release Coherence.