Stage Talk with Rick Koster
Where every show has something to say.
Fasten Your Seatbelts: Big Lux and The Hype hit the Garde’s Oasis Room
Which of the following musical components are not integral to hip hop?
1) Synthesizers/samples
2) Bass
3) Drums
4) Violin
5) Turntables/mixers
If you answered 4, you’re wrong — at least if you’re Big Lux. The artist from Westerly, who brings his band The Hype to the Garde’s intimate Oasis Room Friday, also happens to be an incredible violinist with considerable classical chops and not little bluegrass fluency. He’s blended those elegant stylings with a passion for hip hop, creating vibrant, hooky tunes that are incredibly insightful and socially active. And, oh yeah, Big Lux and The Hype absolutely rock.
By the time he takes the Oasis Room stage, Big Lux will be barely 48 hours removed from graduating Roger Williams Law School with the aim of focusing on entertainment law and housing/land use. He served in the Army in Germany, Korea and Iraq —experiences that provided context and perspective for live back in the States, not to mention fuel for his astonishing lyrical insights.
Last week, in anticipation of his Garde performance, we spoke with Big Lux in what was a terrific and wide-reaching conversation. Here are excerpts, edited for space and clarity.
The Garde: How did you discover violin? Were you in a school band? If, as your music suggests, did your parents listen to bluegrass and classical, or even just music in general?
Big Lux: My dad is a great listener of all kinds of music, and he actually had a sister who played violin. A lot of this predates me, but he went to a recital my sister was participating in, and he was fascinated by all these really young kids playing complicated classical music pieces on violin. Doing it from memory and not sheet music!
And he was like, “How is this possible? I don’t understand what’s going on right now. My sister’s in college and she can barely play, and here are all these seven-year-old kids playing circles around her.”
Garde: Memorization?!
Big Lux: Yep. Dad found out they were learning the Suzuki Method, which has become a very famous method for teaching violin. And he would expose his children to all kinds of stringed instruments and music at a young age, and if any of them showed an interest in learning music, he’d have us study Suzuki. And that’s what happened with me. (laughs) I can’t actually remember if violin was my choice or his, but it was all the master plan of a great man. Since I was seven, violin has always been a big part of my life. I could never get too far away from it before I felt the itch. It’s always been there for me.
Garde: Some might find the idea of a violin as a dominant ingredient in hip hop to be a little odd. I have a theory that the sound and capabilities of a violin are so versatile and magical that, sooner of later, the instrument inevitably happens to any given musical style — rather than the other way around. Does that make sense?
Big Lux: Yes, I think it is inevitable, in the same way that vocals are going to be ultimately inserted into any genre of music. The thing is, bowed string instruments are the ones that most closely mimic the human voice. The way we sing, by pressurizing air across our vocal cords, is very similar to the way a violin bow vibrates strings.
You can probably hear it most acutely, I think, in Asian styles, like Indian violinists and Chinese Erhu musicians. In those musical structures, the instruments sounds just like a human voice crying.
Western strings are a little bit less of that, but still more than any other instrument. So, yeah, I feel like any, anything that you could put a voice into — which is everything — you can push strings into. And it creates either fantastic textures or melodies. The versatility is absolutely fantastic, and I’m very into these dynamics as they apply to hip hop.
Garde: When anything new is introduced into any art form, there has to be an introductory phase. Did you encounter any resistance to what you were doing when you brought violin into your musical world? How has it been introducing audiences to your work — whether classical fans hearing it in a hip hop context — or hip-hop fans hearing it in a crossover classical context?
Big Lux: Yeah, those are good questions. I would not say there is resistance. When people hear it, it goes over really well. Any resistance, if there was any, was in just getting a chance to play for people. Y’know, in the early days, trying to book shows. Venues didn’t really know what I was doing and didn’t really have a model for it.
The attitude was like, “Uh, okay, it seems like what you’re doing is interesting. But at the same time, I know a guy with a guitar who’s gonna sing some songs everyone knows and play his guitar, and people like that. But I don’t know what’s going to happen with this violin thing, you know?”
So the struggle was actually getting booked. Once I get into the room, um, that magic happens and I like to think it becomes undeniable. And, and so I’ve had really great performances with the Boston Festival Orchestra, with the University of Rhode Island Orchestra, with the community music works ensemble, with the Mystic Strings…
Garde: So, while you’re known primarily as a hip-hop artist, that’s sort of inaccurate because you work with a lot various artists and in various styles.
Big Lux: Yeah. I played with a lot of classical groups, and played my original works with them, and they love it, and we have a great time in these nice venues. I love to bring, you know, my style to that side. And then I play hip-hop shows in really gritty clubs with rap artists. I play with DJs and I get people dancing and so, yeah, they love it on that side as well. So I love the versatility of it. I love being able to bring people together across the genre divides.
Garde: In the service, you had enlightening, real-world experiences in different cultures that, both good and bad, helped shape some of your music in an activist sense. You experienced racism and also great kindness and acceptance, learned the way different societies operate, and saw the way younger generations enjoy and even appropriate American music and culture.
Big Lux: Man, I just found the whole thing fascinating. Especially in the older generations, there’s a lot of ignorance when it comes to foreigners … But for the most part, the younger, generations in both Germany and Korea are very plugged into American culture. They love hip hop: the dancing, the music, the fashion — and you can see them just, like, changing their whole culture around what they see as black culture. It’s really fascinating to see it through their eyes.
Garde: And that has resonated with you in a significant was in terms of your own music, right?
Big Lux: So when I took the mix of all of that and came back home, I understand that, you know, racism, xenophobia and all of these ills that we have in the world are not just American problems. They have, like, this global reach, and so they’re universal. And I think, like, we have, we all have a responsibility, like, everywhere, everywhere in the world to build societies that treat everybody equally, and we all have to like everybody has a part in trying to make that happen. I don’t think it’s the natural state of being to live in harmony like that. We, as a society, have to make a choice to do that.
Garde: It’s not easy.
Big Lux: I just understand that this global struggle needs to be consistent. It’s not. There is a lot of beauty and pain and strength in the struggle and I don’t want that struggle to be my entire life’s work. Like, I have other things to do, too. Like it’s a tax on my time to have to fight for my personhood. So, I will do the work because I have to, but know that I don’t wanna be doing it forever.
Garde: Are the good and the bad aspects of that struggle inspiring to you in an artistic sense? Is it an opportunity where you get up in the morning and what’s happening in the world can be a creative and energizing aspect? Or does the world make it a little harder to focus on the artistic priorities in your life? Or both? I’m thinking of your “Red March.” That’s an amazing song and video. Red March Video
Big Lux: Thank you. I’m proud of that song and that you mentioned the video aspect. I thought that we really needed that component. It all came from a very special place and it’s something I felt I had to do.
Overall, I don’t see my art as, as an act of resistance. Primarily, I’d see it as an act of joy and creativity — that it’s going to, you know, just sprout up through the concrete (laughs). But there are also specific times where (politics) have really galvanized me to do something specific.
Garde: Joy is fun. And let’s not forget that Big Lux and The Hype truly rock. Talk about what the audience can expect when they see you in the Oasis Room.
Big Lux: We’re gonna be dynamic. They’ll be some highs and lows and some, in-betweens. One of the things we do is play a lot of shows for dancing audiences in clubs, and we love those shows and making people move.
But I want the Oasis show to be something a little bit more musical and a little more arranged for the serious music listener. The Oasis is a really good opportunity to perform in a really intimate setting and get some people acquainted with the quality of musicianship. I’m so proud of the musicians in my band. They’re all conservatory trained and schooled and (laughs) I’m definitely the worst musician in the band!