Black Violin

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Mark Clennon

Black Violin and instruments.

Black Violin

Classical music meets-hip-hop with the duo Black Violin. Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste take elements from both genres, with soaring strings and infectious beats. It's about, as they say, “thinking outside the box and defying stereotypes,” and also about reaching a younger audience that needs an update as to how a “classical musician” might perform.

media release: This February, the classical-meets-hip-hop duo Black Violin will embark on “The Black Violin Experience Tour” across the US. The tour follows their Best Americana Performance GRAMMY nomination for “The Message,” a collaboration with Blind Boys of Alabama. It was the duo’s second GRAMMY nomination after their 2019 album Take The Stairs was nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. In the past few years, Black Violin has been interviewed by PBS Newshour, Morning Edition, CBC’s Q, 1A, MSNBC, Here & Now, CBS This Morning, CNN, and many more.

For nearly two decades, Black Violin has been merging string arrangements with modern beats and vocals and building bridges in communities along the way. Members Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste first met in orchestra class at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, becoming classically trained on the violin and viola through their high school and college careers. Post-college, they reconvened to produce beats for South Florida rappers, and began building an audience in local clubs. They later went on to win Showtime at the Apollo in 2005, and eventually sold out headline performances at venues across the country, including a sold out two-night headline run at The Kennedy Center in 2018. NPR took note and declared “their music will keep classical music alive for the next generation.” 

Black Violin plays roughly 200 shows a year; many of which are performances for young, low-income students in urban communities. The group has played for hundreds of thousands of students with the goal of challenging stereotypes and preconceived notions of what a “classical musician” looks and sounds like. “The stereotypes are always there, embedded so deep in our culture,” says Wil. “Just by nature of our existence we challenge those ideas. It’s a unique thing that brings people together who aren’t usually in the same room, and in the current climate, it’s good to bring people together.”

In 2019, the group launched the Black Violin Foundation Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth by providing access to quality music programs in their community. BVF believes that music and access to music programs should not be determined by race, gender, or socio-economic status. Black Violin Foundation’s inaugural program The Musical Innovation Grant for Continuing Education will provide scholarships to young music students to attend a program of their liking that fosters musical creativity and innovation