Wil (Wilner) Baptiste said that he and his partner, Kevin Sylvester, came into their career as violinists in different ways. “Kevin used to get in trouble in school and his mother forced him to take a Saturday music class, which is where he learned to play, but when I was 13, I was actually put in the wrong class … but there was the viola, so I picked it up and here I am, 19 years later, still playing it.”

Wil and Kev’s story, as dissimilar as their beginnings are, came to a head with a collaborative effort that Wil says seems to have come from “out of nowhere.” But it really didn’t come from out of nowhere, because, as we know, sometimes when the stars collide, they collide and the unexpected happens.

Truth is, the violin is not a very, shall we say, “popular” instrument with African American children.

Since it is such a rarity, that is the very reason Black Violin sees it as their mission to play to more than a quarter of a million children per year, often doing about two shows per day and one at night.

Said Wil “We challenge the children to think outside the box, to understand that sports isn’t the only way, and maybe even hip-hop or rap isn’t the only way…stretch those limitations elsewhere.”

Children should be taught to think about more than just a fixed way to live, but to also live creatively.

Because listening to them play easily puts an avid listener in the mindset of watching “Charlie Daniels Meets Samuel Coleridge-Taylor”, I asked Wil, essentially, what the difference is between the violin and the fiddle.

“The only real difference is the style of playing. Other than that, the two are essentially the same.” ”

So, how did the two of you get from there -in the ‘hood, with Kev cuttin’ up in class and you getting put in the wrong class, and from where you met in high school to where you are now?”

“Around 2002, we decided to brand this ‘new’ form of using the violin with hip-hop by going to different nightclubs and asking them if we could play in their establishments. As you can imagine, it was a hard sell, a very hard sell, but what we would do is stand out in the parking lot and take our violins out of the trunk of the car and just perform openly, right in front of the promoters. Well, turns out they liked it a lot better than they thought they would, so we ended up inside, ‘rocking the club,” so to speak.”

“The next thing we did was we took an audition tape to the Apollo, and the Apollo called us back and the rest is history. We are actually now in the 2005 Apollo Legends.”

 

 

Playing with Alicia Keys and Linkin Park, says Wil, “was what actually set the whole thing off and it’s been non-stop ever since.”

Since then, they’ve played nationally and internationally for three NFL Official Superbowl celebrations, the U.S. Open in Forest Hills with Jordin Sparks,  Fat Joe, Akon, the Wu Tang Clan, for troops returning from Iraq, and in President Obama’s and the Kid’s Inaugural Balls.

Black Violin has collaborated with P. Diddy, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Tom Petty, Aerosmith, Aretha Franklin and The Eagles. Kev supplied strings for a track on Lupe Fiasco’s Grammy-nominated “Food & Liquor 2” album, and appeared on the Meek Mill cut “Maybach Curtains” with John Legend, Rick Ross and Nas.

Wil and Kev also scored an episode of CSI: New York, adapting the finale of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly for an on-screen murder. “It’s now time to spread the word about Black Violin,” insists Kev. “The groundswell is just beginning.”

Wil says they have some more albums and studio work on the table in the future, as well as live concerts, but he sees Grammys in their near future. I would not doubt it, considering how blown away I was when I first heard “A Flat” on YouTube (see below).

[The takeaway value, young Black America, is that when you find something you really love to do, life starts taking unexpected twists and turns and lands you in places you probably never thought you could go.]

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The band’s most recent album, Classically Trained, is the follow-up to their 2007 self-titled debut on their own Di-Versatile Music Group label, which is as good an introduction to their groundbreaking blend of classical, hip-hop, rock, R&B, and even bluegrass music. Live, they are often accompanied by their crack band, featuring ace turntable whiz DJTK (Dwayne Dayal), drummer Beatdown (Jermaine McQueen) and cellist Joe Cello (Joseph Valbrun).

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