Bluegrass and Hip-Hop: two genres of American music that both have their own rich histories and traditions. But what happens when a group takes the melting pot a bit further by blending Appalachian aural aesthetic with Bronx originated beats and bars?
You're listening to Off the Record with Stephen Philip Harvey, where we sit down and talk to a variety of musicians on today's music scene.
Today we're sitting down with the members of Gangstagrass. There are music collective fusing bluegrass and rap music. Two musics not often associated with each other, but working for this collective. But how do they make it work?
Well, we, found each other wandering the Mojave Desert and we were fighting over the same cactus for water. And then we said, we don't have to fight. We could...and then we realized it was the same for our musical tastes. That we don't have to sacrifice one for the other.
And so we brought it all together, and it was only later that we started studying about it, and realized that southern music was southern music until the record companies got involved and started segregating everything into separate genres based on race. So we're trying to undo that false segregation.
The group often explores the overlap between the genres, highlighting the history of both musics in the process. In doing so, they make a dope experience for fans of either genre or its new fusion.
The way you learn, you know, bluegrass, and fiddle music, and all of that too. It's all social, you know. These days it's really like going to festivals and staying up all night. And so that improvisational thing: you're learning structure of songs, you're learning specific tunes and stuff. But then basically learning how to deal with whatever... getting thrown into different spots.
So that's, especially, I think, the instrumental crew here. Ricky does that super well, and then it matches up great with the freestyle and more range stuff, because there's overlap between like the Bluegrass Jam and the cypher.
The thing that we realized is that Bluegrass and hip hop both have those strong improvisation elements that we can bring together. And it really works. So there's freestyling, soloing... We can really go off of the structure and not be doing it the way we did it on the album.
This week. Gangstagrass brings their music to the Delmarva community at the Maryland Folk Festival. When asked what to expect for their performance, this is what they had to say.
We like to make sure that every show is different and very sort of specific to. Where we're at. So you know, there'll be a couple references about where we are, who we are with, you know, stuff in the area day. If you're wearing an interesting shirt, you might end up in a verse. Mm oh, there's freestyle still.
Okay, cool. Right! Off the top of the dome! Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. We do this for eternity.
Gangstagrass. We must last
I rep for the real Stephen Harvey, without the mustaches.
See, my squad is so ill,
I got flavor like the crabs down at the Old Mill.
That was the members of Gangstagrass. They perform this weekend at the Maryland Folk Festival. More information can be found at mdfolkfest.com.
This was Off the Record, hosted by Stephen Philip Harvey, a Delmarva Public Media Production. To hear more off the record interviews or to listen to other original segments like this, visit delmarvapubticmedia.org.
