Umpass-stay was a male Klatooinian who worked as a drummer and bodyguard for the Max Rebo Band at the palace of the crime lord Jabba the Hutt on the planet Tatooine. Four years after the Battle of Yavin, he and the rest of the band performed the song Jedi Rocks for Jabba, who demanded they repeat the song but then dropped the enslaved Oola into his rancor pit when she refused his advances during the performance. The band stopped playing as the rancor devored the slave, and then witnessed the arrival of Princess Leia Organa disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh with the Wookiee Chewbacca as a prisoner.
Umpass-stay was a Klatooinian mercenary from the planet Klatooine who was enslaved by the Desilijic Kajidic and essentially forced to work as both bodyguard and drummer for the Max Rebo Band, the house band of the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure, with the Klatooinian also serving as a bodyguard for Jabba himself. In 4 ABY, he and the Weequay drummer Ak-rev performed a duet together on an enormous drum that required two drummers during a performance by the band in the throne room of Jabba's Palace on the planet Tatooine.
The band initially played a relatively slow piece as Oola and Yarna d'al' Gargan, a pair of enslaved dancers, performed in front of Jabba. When the song finished, Jabba demanded that Oola repeat her performance, but thinking that the Hutt had been speaking to the band, the singer Joh Yowza counted them down into another song. The Growdi Harmonique player Rappertunie began playing the wrong song, but after Yowza shouted at him, the whole band began playing "Jedi Rocks." Ak-rev and Umpass-stay's drumming was then brought to a stop when Jabba dropped Oola through a trapdoor after she refused his advances. Musical performance forgotten, Jabba's court rushed forward to instead watch as Oola was devoured alive by the Hutt's pet rancor, Pateesa, in a pit below.
Umpass-stay was a drummer for the Max Rebo Band.
After the excitement surronding Oola's demise died down, Princess Leia Organa—disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh—entered the throne room with the Wookiee Chewbacca as her prisoner. After she bargained with Jabba over the bounty on the Wookiee's head, the band began playing again as Chewbacca was taken away to the Hutt's prisons. The drum that Umpass-stay and Ak-rev were playing had been removed from the throne room later that night when Organa freed the smuggler Han Solo from the carbonite he had been frozen in on one of the room's walls. The next day, Jabba and much of his court traveled to the Great Pit of Carkoon to execute Solo, Chewbacca, and the Jedi Luke Skywalker there; however, the prisoners fought back and Jabba was killed. After Jabba's death, Umpass-stay and Ak-rev both fled from the palace.
Umpass-stay first appeared in the Special Edition re-release of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi in 1997. He was first named in the Star Wars Legends Special Edition Limited set of Decipher, Inc.'s Star Wars Customizable Card Game which was released in 1998.
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