If you are looking for a light in the current cultural gloom, a message that offers a fresh but familiar guide in these disorienting times, update your weekend playlist with Black Violin’s new single, “Beautiful Day.”
A sunny ode to the power of against-the-odds optimism and self-determination, the song draws from a well of history and inspiration that sustained iconic soul singers such as Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway.
Written by Black Violin — Fort Lauderdale classical-meets-hip-hop duo Kev Marcus (violin) and Wil B. (viola), the latter also delivering sublime lead vocals — “Beautiful Day” is elevated by an exquisite feature from Donny’s daughter, the regal Lalah Hathaway.
It is one of several tracks on “Full Circle,” a new album released on May 2 from the two-time Grammy nominees, whose creative DNA includes Bach, Beethoven and Busta Rhymes. Their first release in more than five years and two years in the making, it is a collection that should propel the duo to more accolades, perhaps their first Grammy win. Songs such as “Beautiful Day,” the declarative “Live My Life” and the glorious instrumental “Smoke,” layered over a gospel choir, may flow over you like a restorative balm.
“What we always strive to create is music that’s sort of unifying, timeless and uplifting,” Kev says. “That’s just sort of woven into us. Making music that feels good in your soul.”
Recorded live in a studio in Los Angeles with their band — drummer Nat Stokes, keyboardist Liston Gregory III, producer and multi-instrumentalist Phil Beaudreau and DJ SPS — these are also songs that Black Violin composed with their eyes wide open.
“We didn’t write the album now, when there is so much crazy stuff happening, but there’s always crazy stuff happening,” Kev says. “And, I think, that’s always what we are writing in response to … anybody that’s trying to hold you down, anyone that doesn’t think that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, anyone that’s trying to keep you in a box.”
Busta moves
Kev (born Kevin Sylvester) and Wil B. (Wilner Baptiste) have not felt confined to anyone’s expectations since they first met in 1996 in the classical orchestra at Fort Lauderdale’s Dillard High School, which would soon establish the Dillard Center for the Arts magnet program.
“We had such a great synergy within the orchestra. Everybody became friends, quick. It was, like, Black kids, latino kids, and it was something about that energy,” Wil says. “We were just young kids playing in an orchestra, playing at a really high level in classical music. Of course, we would stray away and do things other than classical music just for fun.”
Kev was a fan of 1990s New York hip-hop, with favorite artists including Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, Mos Def and Common. Wil was listening to hip-hop, as well as to a lot of R&B, including vocalists such as Brian McKnight. Both also felt a kinship to the behind-the-scenes work of hip-hop producers Timbaland and The Neptunes, who created new sounds that came to define the era.
The first expression of the music that would become Black Violin happened when Kev came to class with his phone programmed with the notes from the 1998 Busta Rhymes hit “Gimme Some More,” which includes a violin sample from the opening theme to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic “Psycho.” Kev, Wil and others began playing it in orchestra class.
Orchestra director James Miles took a dim view of these kinds of shenanigans on his time.
“He was definitely not OK with it,” Wil says, laughing, acknowledging that Miles eventually would allow for such experimentation before and after class.
“Hop-hop is about expressing yourself unapologetically, you know, so it was just natural for us to take this thing that we’ve learned, that we love, and blend the two, just have fun with it,” he says. “It was just a product of our environment. I think that’s why we’ve been able to sustain it as long as we have, because we’re not forcing it.”
Giving back
It was Miles who bought Kev and Wil their first instruments, instilling in them a mission to pay that generosity forward through the Black Violin Foundation, which provides instruments, instruction and mentorship to aspiring musicians while reaching more than 100,000 students a year through free performances, youth symphonies, community centers and low-income schools.
These efforts included a Juneteenth celebration on Wednesday at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale, co-sponsored by the Black Violin Foundation and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The pair was scheduled for a Q&A session.
It is that hands-on relationship to music that adds to the irony of the cover of the album “Full Circle,” a recording that revisits themes that they’ve been exploring for two decades, now filtered through a lifetime of experiences, the duo says.
The image on the album jacket shows Kev, a Davie resident, and Wil, from Plantation, back in their old neighborhood, in a housing project across Sunrise Boulevard from Dillard, a complex known as The Green due to the color of the buildings. They are dressed in tuxedos.
“It’s more formally called Franklin Park but we called it The Green. It was iconic. Everyone that’s from Fort Lauderdale, like the ‘hood, where we’re from, when you see that you know exactly where it is,” Kev says.
The image perfectly represented the idea of the two coming full circle, Kev says. The tuxedos required some informality, with collars open, Wil’s bow tie askew. Their faces are stoic. They look like they’ve been on a journey.
“We’re never known to be in tuxedos,” Kev says. “In this situation, both of us think that where it is, and our demeanor in the shot, that there’s an energy coming from it. It should make you think outside of the tuxedos. Like, ‘what’s going on with these guys?’”
Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com.
