On Tuesday January 28, 2020 Black Violin played in Santa Barbara, California at the Granada Theater, usually the epitome of established upper class white culture. But today this performance by Black Violin drew a multicultural audience, young and old. The music, the visuals, and the performance they brought was an extreme juxtaposition: the cross pollination of classical and hip hop music.
Black Violin’s first album was called Stereotypes, and the title was a theme to which they returned often to describe their experience: two black violinists who have been physically stopped on the street, confused with thugs when they hold violins, two black men who were told in high school they should play basketball or football because of their appearance. These biases, conscious or not, are within all of us. Everyday we place ourselves and those around us into these boxes, as if you can only be one person or another, rather than the eclectic mix we all are.
Black Violin breaks those stereotypes by mixing two genres that couldn’t be more different, by showcasing their passion for not only hip hop but also classical music, and by bringing elderly white women to a concert with urban black teenagers. Black Violin in their first two minutes on stage leaves behind the idea that just because you look a certain way or are part of a certain group that you can’t fulfill this dream. Wil and Kev, the duo who make up Black Violin, play with true virtuosity and passion. They repeatedly got everyone up on their feet, clapping and moving with the music, and demonstrating how music unites people from different backgrounds. And they teach that lesson in many venues; they played for 1200 school children in Santa Barbara earlier in the afternoon, showing by example what kids can achieve through music and also by following a vision that is just a little bit different. Not nearly as well funded as sports, music offers another community to an entirely different set of kids. Making it a goal to enhance urban communities, Black Violin works with around 100,000 young students during the school year, mostly from Title 1 schools, not only to mentor them in music, but also to spread their message of being unique and standing out from the crowd.
To break a stereotype is to put yourself out there, to risk rejection. Black Violin has taken this risk with clear success. Having received music scholarships for college, Kev and Wil could have become classical musicians for an orchestra like the LA Philharmonic and used their classical training. They could have chosen the hip hop route and completely disregarded their classical training. Instead, they combined their two seemingly different worlds into a movement even more powerful, a lesson for all of us.