PODCAST: Sounds of Berklee—Black Violin

Wil Baptiste and Kev Marcus of the violin-driven hip-hop and rock duo Black Violin use their strings not only to challenge the concept of what makes for popular music but also to blow open racial stereotypes. 

Baptiste and Marcus say they want to encourage and empower people of all ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds to find what connects us rather what divides us. "The reason I smile on stage is because I know I'm completely crushing people's perceptions of not only what a violin can do, or what music could possibly sound like, but also of what a black man is capable of," Marcus says in the song "Stereotypes." 

Let’s take a listen, and then be sure to catch them on April 22 at Berklee's Red Room at Cafe 939. Off the group’s 2015 album of the same name, here’s “Stereotypes.”