Ravinia 2021 - Issue 3

In their Ravinia debut September 11, Baptiste and Marcus will be joined onstage by their two regular collaborators, DJ SPS and drummer Nat Stokes PREVIOUS SPREAD: MARK CLENNON; THIS PAGE: RON VALLE Who knows how Baptiste’s life would’ve progressed if he’d picked up the woodwind instead. He met his future music-making partner during that summer intensive: soon-to-be- violinist Kev Marcus attended at his mom’s insistence, envisioning it as a corrective to misbehavior after he got caught stealing candy. After spending their summer on the strings, the boys’ paths became further entwined at Dillard High School of the Perform- ing Arts, setting their course as best friends and collaborators for decades to come. The Butterfly Effect of one fateful golf game is too powerful a story to ignore. “I thank God for it, because it was definitely meant to be,” Baptiste says. “I don’t even care for the sax anymore.” Today, the duo from Fort Lauder- dale have become highly renowned artists, known on multiple continents for their innovative sound, which blends hip-hop with classical. This unconventional career path has led to some thrilling places, including a performance at President Obama’s second inauguration ball in 2013. Other feathers in their collective cap include opening for Jay-Z in Switzer- land and Kanye West in Dubai. Like so many acts, Black Violin had a lot of plans in place before the world came to a crashing halt in spring 2020. Their late-2019 release, Take the Stairs , had won rave re- views; it went on to earn the pair their first Grammy nomination, for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. They’ve just resumed touring this summer with their two regular stagemates, drummer Nat Stokes and DJ SPS, and the four musicians catch up with one of those plans deferred on September 11 when they play their much-anticipated Ravinia show. They’ve dubbed this tour the Impossible Tour, named after one of the Take the Stairs tracks . Despite the Grammy categorization, some of their output contains lyrics—including “Impossible is Possible,” an inspira- tional pop anthem. The song deftly reflects Black Violin’s ethos, and Stairs is really a right-place-right-time re- lease for this strange but exciting era, as the country emerges from the long shadow of COVID. Although they recorded the album in 2019, Baptiste notes that they were channeling hope even before the pandemic. During a two-week-long creative jam session, “we put up a board and wrote, in big letters, HOPE . We wanted to make an album that projected the idea,” both instrumen- tally and through vocals. “Our music lends itself to hope, even from the very beginning. We’re thinking out- side the box. Don’t judge a book from its cover. That’s been our mantra.” Of course, undergirding their inspirational outlook and bold artistic choices are years of hard work. After attending different colleges, Bap- tiste and Marcus moved in together in South Florida. “We just started creating music. The idea was just to be the next Timbaland, the next major producer,” Baptiste says. “We wanted to incorporate classical music into pop music in a way that no one had RAVINIA MAGAZINE • AUGUST 18 – SEPTEMBER 6, 2021 24