He plays it all, from ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ to ‘I’ve Got the Power,’ outside of Reading Terminal Market | We The People

Meet Jeremiah Thompson, a street musician who calls himself “The Cunga Man” and has been performing outside of Reading Terminal Market for more than a decade.

• Cash tip: “The song I got the largest donation ever for was Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” This woman gave me $20 and once I got halfway through the song, she went in her wallet and was like ‘Just take everything.’”

• Labor of love: “People say, ‘Get a job.’ Well, actually, this is my job. And I love it. I love my job.”

When Jeremiah Thompson first ventured out as a solo street performer in 2007, he brought only his voice and a small basket for donations to Suburban Station.

On his second day in, a man stopped to watch him perform and as Thompson sang, the stranger just stood there, all the while, shaking his head no.

“He came up to me after and told me ‘Look man, you need an instrument,’” Thompson said. “He was bold enough to do that and it helped to reshape my whole way of performing.”

Thompson, 49, of Lawnside, never saw that man again, but the next day he pulled an old conga drum out of his parents’ closet. He didn’t know how to play, but vowed to teach himself while busking at Market East Station (now Jefferson Station) in Center City.

“For a while they called me the one beat king because they was like ‘You only got one beat and you play that beat the whole time!’” he said.

Today, Thompson — who calls his drum a “cunga” (the way he learned to spell and pronounce it), and calls himself “The Cunga Man”— not only has a catalog full of beats, he and his drum are the heartbeat outside of Reading Terminal Market, where he’s performed for the last decade.

Backed by karaoke tracks, Thompson performs an eclectic array of 360 throwback hits, from Chuck Brown’s “Bustin’ Loose” to “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds under the market’s iconic neon sign.

And as he does, Thompson changes the face — and the faces of — this city. Drivers beep with smiling approval, pedestrians sing along, and passersby who were just walking to Reading Terminal Market end up dancing their way inside instead.

“His playing inspires. It gives me a sense of hope that there is hope in the city of Philadelphia,” said Lamont Twyne, 51, of West Philly, who stopped recently to watch Thompson play. “If you listen to his music, you don’t need to go to the doctor. He is the prescription.”

People throw tips and thank-you notes into Thompson’s donation baskets; tourists from around the world film him performing; and he’s even got regular fans and popular requests, like ”Fields of Gold” by Sting.

In February, a woman stopped and watched Thompson perform for three hours. Several songs brought tears to her eyes.

“She came up to me after and said ‘I was really contemplating just taking myself out of this world. I was done living, but your music just spoke to my heart,’” Thompson said. “She put a $20 dollar bill in and said ‘Don’t ever stop playing music. You don’t know how it really changed my life.’”

Music has changed Thompson’s life, too. Born in Philly and raised everywhere from New Jersey to North Carolina, Thompson grew up in a religious family that had a musical group called The Fabulous Gospel Dee’s. They’d perform at churches, community functions, and even at a biker barbecue in Lawnside.

“All the motorcycle gangs from Philly would go over there and my mom and dad would be singing gospel music,” Thompson said. “Then the guys would get drunk and get saved. My dad [a Baptist deacon] would be laying hands on them in prayer.”

As a teen, Thompson, his brother, and their sister had an a cappella group called the DDTs which performed at malls, Penn’s Landing, and even on Jerry Blavat’s show, he said.

At home, Thompson was only allowed to listen to religious music and his mom’s records of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches (many of which he committed to memory). So whenever he’d go to a store or any public space where music was playing, Thompson would listen closely to what was coming over the airwaves.

Those songs he heard in public back then are the songs he plays today, from Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” to “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” by Gloria Estefan.

“I know these were the songs that were most played because if I knew it, it had to get a lot of airplay,” Thompson said. “That helps me now because I really play a lot of songs that appeal to the masses.”

As a young man, Thompson also tried to appeal to the masses, but in a very different way. His family was living in Delaware when he asked to move in with his uncle in Philly so he could attend Strawberry Mansion High.

“I heard of all the shooting and killing and I felt like I could really make a big difference if I could just get into the ears of my peers,” he said. “I’d be speaking in the lunchroom about the Lord. Teachers heard about it and said ‘We want you to address the whole school.’”

Thompson spoke at several assemblies and recited some of the Martin Luther King Jr. speeches he’d memorized from his mother’s records, he said.

After graduating in 1993, Thompson followed the advice of a guidance counselor at the school and created a group called “Keep the Dream Alive,” which produced a Black History Month program called “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory.” In it, he portrayed King and hired other actors to portray historical figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. The program, which traveled around to city schools, ran until 2011.

To supplement his income, Thompson also worked a series of security and warehouse jobs and began street performing in 2007. In 2011, he started taking fellow street performers with him to play oldies hits at nursing homes, which he did until the pandemic hit.

Pursuing his passion for performance hasn’t always been easy for Thompson, a father of six, whose kids range in age from 15 to 29. He’s a single dad to his only two daughters, and sometimes, the three of them had to stay in shelters when times got tough.

So today, Thompson spends eight hours or more performing outside of Reading Terminal, until he makes in tips a quota he’s set in his mind for that day. It may be the money he needs to pay a phone bill or to buy something for one of his kids, but he won’t stop playing until he makes it.

Thompson learned the hard way that playing for so long cracks the skin on his hands, so he now covers them with African shea butter, puts on a pair of plastic gloves, and then a pair of cotton gloves on top of that to keep them moisturized.

As he performs, Thompson’s hands fly into the air, as if propelled by the sound waves from his drum, and he works the crowds of Center City like a nightclub DJ.

“Let’s get the party started!” he said recently, while performing. “They call me The Cunga Man. We about to turn this thing up a bit!”

On Tuesdays, Thompson incorporates advertisements in his sets for Sweet T’s Bakery, the first Black-owned bakery in Reading Terminal Market.

“Don’t forget to check out Sweet T’s for all your bakery needs,” Thompson tells passersby. “Sweet T’s in Reading Terminal Market, the best sweet potato pie in town!”

Sweet T’s owner Mark El said he’s proud to support Thompson, who “really brings something to this area.”

“He cheers people up coming into the market,” El said. “Some people come here just to see him.”

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