On a sweltering Thursday afternoon in July, Quoom Wilburn and two friends caught a downtown D train at the Bedford Park station. They were off to see Wilburn’s father in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, but the trio had another reason to be on the subway that day; they wanted to make some money. So began a frantic – not to mention noisy – roller coaster ride through three boroughs.

Wilburn, 28, and his buddies, brothers Aniayah and Yeshai Lewi, are drummers with The United Drummers of Israel, a group the dreadlocked Wilburn helped found. While they occasionally gig at clubs in Manhattan and Queens, subway cars are often their venues, and straphangers their audience.

They started in the car at the front of the train, positioning their drums in the space by the train’s doors, before unfolding the little stall each carried under his arm, and sitting down. Wilburn, with his big smile and big voice, is a natural entertainer. “Some of you are gonna like it. Some of you are gonna love it. There’s always one hater!” he roared above the noise of the accelerating train.

According to Aniayah, who, like the others, recently became a father, the drummers play off each other, rather than following a particular musical piece or rhythm. Regardless, they’re always in unison, whether they drum slow and soft or hard and fast. They use the palms of their hands, but also their fists and fingers, and Wilburn occasionally licks the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and runs it across the vibrating drumhead, creating a distorted screech.

As the train began to brake for the Kingsbridge Road stop, Wilburn whipped out a Yankees hat, turned it upside down, held it out in front of him, and paced the aisle. “Money for the drummers!” he shouted.

Aniayah was similarly animated. “Clap your hands, it raises our self-esteem!” he yelled. “Smile New York, the world needs positive energy!”

When the train came to a halt, and the doors sprung open, the drummers each grabbed their chair and drum (Yeshai is stuck with two), exited the car, and sprinted to the next one down. After a few polite “excuse me’s” to create room, Wilburn started again: “Some of you are gonna like it. Some of you… ”

Wilburn loves to flirt and make people laugh, and most of the time the drummers get a great reception. Kids giggle, and watch wide-eyed, and adults put down their newspapers, applaud and allow themselves a smile; a few even buy the group’s CD and DVD. Occasionally, however, the drummers will bump into someone who isn’t so welcoming. “I’ll pay you $5 if you shut up,” Wilburn recalls one man saying on a previous outing.

At the Rockefeller station in Manhattan they changed for the F train, and at Delancey Street they switched to the Brooklyn-bound J train. By the time they reached Bed-Stuy they’d played perhaps 25 impromptu concerts, and made something approaching $100. At Wilburn’s father’s house, the drummers offered a prayer to God, just as they did on boarding the D train at Bedford Park. Inside, Wilburn handed out ears of corn, and counted the proceeds of a successful trip, carefully straightening out each one-dollar bill.

Wilburn lives on East 199th Street in Bedford Park, but he spends much of his time in Brooklyn, where he was born and raised. Drumming has always been part of his life. “I was learning from a baby, hitting pots and pans,” he said.  Wilburn’s father is also a drummer, and like his son calls himself an Israelite, a group who believes they descend from the 12 Tribes of Jacob.

Aniayah wears a bandanna. A gold colored Star of David (or Shield of David, as Israelites call it), smaller than a dime, is attached to the front and hangs over his forehead. “Drumming is a big part of our culture,” he said. “It got us through 400 years of slavery.”

The United Drummers of Israel are a loose affiliation of 20-plus drummers, providing Quoom with a handy pool of talent to accompany him on the subway. Wilburn himself plays several times a week, and for several hours at a time. It can be exhausting, he concedes, especially running between subway cars at each stop with a bulky two-foot-tall drum in tow.

After a cooling drink, it was off to work again; laughing and joking, Wilburn, Aniayah and Yeshai jumped back on the subway.