Papa Dee Allen

Papa Dee Allen (born Thomas Sylvester Allen July 18, 1931, in Wilmington, Delaware, died 1988) was an American musician.

Allen was interested in classical music before he joined War. Primarily a percussionist, he also played piano, vibes and soprano sax. The first musical notions involved opera, and he studied operatic voice, as well as jazz and the classics, for two years, in and around his Wilmington, Delaware, beginnings.

He responded well and heartily to the concepts of music that would become the revolutionary visions of War. He was living in Pomona, California when approached about joining the others who'd already been enlisted as the Night Shift: Howard E. Scott, Lonnie Jordan, B.B. Dickerson, Charles Miller and Harold Brown (who met him first). He was the main writer of one of War's major hits, the "The World Is a Ghetto".Sylvester "Papa Dee" Allen collapsed on stage while playing "Gypsy Man". He never regained consciousness.