Mixing hip-hop with classical
There’s a story that used to make its rounds in the sheet music business about legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman making a stop at the iconic Frank Music Shop in New York City. The person who waited on him was new and asked Perlman if he ever played around town. Perlman, who had performed numerous times at the nearby Carnegie Hall, answered with complete humility, “Wherever they ask me to play, I play.”
Black Violin is the modern incarnation of that simple, but constant, drive to perform.
“It’s hard to come from humble beginnings, so when they offer to pay, you come,” said violinist Kev Murphy. “I just kind of surrender. When you do that, it’s not work. It’s hard to turn it down because people love it.
“We didn’t come up on social media or Youtube or because of hit albums. We got here because when we get on stage, we destroy you. We live there. It’s where we’re most comfortable.”
The duo of Murphy (born Kevin Sylvester) on violin and Wil B (Wilner Baptiste) on viola (joined onstage by DJ SPS and drummer Nat Stokes) started their careers as high school orchestra nerds in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., before building up a juggernaut combination of hip-hop and classical that has made them one of the top string crossover artists in the world. They have a tour schedule that would give your average professional wrestler a run for their money, often playing more than 100 shows a year.
Even COVID hardly slowed them down. In 2019 they released their biggest album yet, “Take the Stairs,” which earned them a Grammy nomination, and played 40 shows before the pandemic hit. While forced to cancel a ton of dates, they turned around and put out a stellar Christmas album while biding their time to hit the road again.
Now they’re back on Wednesday at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, a pretty typical place for them. Black
Violin is well-known for advocacy regarding music programs all over the country, running a successful foundation with their wives to get instruments to kids. Sticking to performance halls allows them to get a more family-friendly audience.
“It’s good in pop venues, but we’re super
all-ages,” Murphy said. “In pop venues, there are people smoking weed and drinking, and that’s not cool around a 10year-old. We want to be the place a kid falls in love with the violin.”
Setting up the next generation is important for the group, and they visit schools to generate
interest.
In some ways things haven’t changed since they were in school (Murphy still detests having to play Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” a staple of school performances), but he sees a lot of potential for string players in the modern musical landscape.
“Our cool stuff to play is ‘Star Wars’ and ‘West Side Story.’ Now with us and the rest they can try more different stuff, to connect,” said Murphy, referencing such similar crossover artists as Lindsey Stirling, Rasputina, and Zoe Keating as acts that have successfully
blended modern music with classical. “There is also so much distraction now, so I imagine it’s harder to get good with the instrument. I can’t imagine practicing while also having, like, Instagram. On the other hand, you can become viral in middle school thanks to playing on social media. It’s exciting.”
Modernity is a big part of what has made Black Violin such a success. While steeped in Baroque musical trappings, Murphy doesn’t think of himself as a composer “like Mozart sitting down with ink and paper.” He considers what they do more “content creation,” something exemplified by the viral video for the single “Show Off ” that mixed their energetic hip-hop strings with a collection of physical stunts.
Nonetheless, there is a tremendous debt in their music to both the golden ages of classical and hip-hop.
“It’s a very careful blend of both,” Murphy said. “We have a freestyle portion of every show that goes like a rap battle. The classical approach is to play a bunch of notes, but in pop it’s the right notes at the right time. The mixture is what gets the little 10-year-old that doesn’t care about violin into it.”
Like a musical cocktail master, Murphy thrives best when making the ingredients play off each other. One of the things he’s eager to show off now is a bit of the group’s country side. Black Violin recently added “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” to its repertoire. Just another way Murphy and Wil B keep changing the game by reinventing the way it’s played.
“We showed that off in Seattle, and I thought, ‘Man, I can’t wait to get back to the South with it,’ ” Murphy said.