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Track Premiere: The Only Way Out Is Through from Gangstagrass

Gangstagrass is certainly among the most engaging and provocative acts in and around bluegrass music. For those who’ve never seen them, the concept is to mix the beats and delivery of hip hop with the rhythms and instruments of bluegrass. Yes, it may be jarring at first to followers of either part of this genre blend, but they do it with such skill and panache that it really works on both levels.

The band is the brainchild of a New York artist/producer who goes by Rench, who has put together a group that combines banjos and fiddles with positive hip hop lyrics. They have become a legitimate sensation, creating a fascinating cross-cultural mashup for fans at their live shows.

A new Gangstagrass single is set for release tomorrow, The Only Way Out Is Through, and they have asked us to offer our readers a premiere this afternoon in advance. In addition to the regular lineup, reso-guitar master Jerry Douglas joins the guys on this track.

Rench plays guitar and creates the beats, assisted by Dan Whitener on banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and vocals; Brian Farrow on fiddle and vocals; and R-SON the Voice of Reason and Dolio the Sleuth on vocals.

Have a listen…

The Only Way Out Is Through will be available on February 2 from popular download and streaming services online.

Check the Gangstagrass web site for a chance to see this interesting outfit live.

Gangstagrass gets in a groove at the Shed in Maryville, TN

Granted, Gangstagrass offers the unexpected. The band’s highly unlikely fusion of bluegrass and rap/hip hop results in a sound that may seem entirely alien to fans of both genres. Consequently, it takes an open mind. However, once the band is experienced first hand, it all seems to gel.

Their hour and forty minute live performance at the Shed, which took place this past Friday night (8/19/22), attracted a friendly and frenzied crowd, and although the audience was smaller by comparison to most shows at a venue that generally favors bands of a Southern rock variety, the enthusiasm was palatable throughout. The five piece combo — consisting of Rench (vocals, guitar, beats), Dan Whitener (banjo, mandolin, harmonica, vocals), Brian Farrow (fiddle, vocals), R-SON the Voice of Reason (vocals), and Dolio the Sleuth (vocals) — operates well in synch, often starting a song with a banjo or fiddle-driven melody, only to have the rappers take center stage and subsequently dominate the proceedings. While purists may resent the intrusion, the Shed crowd enjoyed every offering, dancing deliriously with arms outstretched while keeping time to the rhythms. On a song like Put Your Hands Up High, they simply did as they were told. Likewise, the fact that the Shed is adjacent to a Harley Davidson dealership made songs such as Bound To Ride andRide With You wholly appropriate as well.

If one were to measure the impact of each element, both portions of the proceedings seemed equally dominant. Both Dolio and R-SON used their respective turns at the microphone to parlay messages about racial justice and the need to find common cause. Freedom and Do Better were especially emphatic in that regard, and while Rench, Farrow, and Whitener seemed all too willing to cede the spotlight, they did their part to keep a persistent pace with the drive and delivery. While it may seem odd that banjo and fiddle are the instruments that propel the proceedings, ultimately the combination really clicks.

To those ends, Gangstagrass can be credited not only with imagination and ingenuity, but dedication and determination. Indeed, it takes all the above to find common ground between two such strikingly disparate genres. Whitener admitted as much when he said to the crowd, “I bet you’ve never heard music like this.” Likewise, when R-Son declared, “You may not like it or understand it, but I am what I am,” while leading into the aptly-named What I Am, and challenged the audience to show their understanding.

The strategy worked. Judging from the long lines of fans that were there to greet the band at the merch table after the show, Gangstagrass clearly succeeded in gaining a legion of local devotees even as they dared to be so different.

(Yours truly was especially impressed when they integrated my name into one of their rapid-fire raps. Clearly, they have a ready reserve when it comes to shoring up the spontaneity.)

The trio that opened the show, Tejon Street Corner Thieves, did their best to warm up the crowd and provide a proper set-up for an exuberant evening. Hailing from Colorado, they reflected the fact that seemingly anything goes, enticing the crowd to make some noise with songs about drinking and generally getting high. (Little wonder that one of their songs is simply titled Whiskey.) Nevertheless, their rousing and rowdy approach — conveyed by banjo, guitar and stand-up bass — falls within the bounds of bluegrass. That said, their take on the Cab Calloway standard, Minnie the Moocher, gave them cause to pierce some parameters as well.

No Time for Enemies – Gangstagrass

Gangstagrass makes music that’s decidedly different, and otherwise hard to envision, at least in theory. An unlikely blend of bluegrass and — of all things — an ample amount of rap and hip-hop. It makes for an unexpected — and we daresay — an unorthodox combination, one that will likely find fans of both genres scratching their heads out of concern, confusion, or both. Yet, somehow, despite that disparity, in actual practice it seems to somehow make sense. The band, consisting of a vocalist, guitarist, and beat master named Rench, rappers R-Son The Voice of Reason and Dollo The Sleuth, banjo player, guitarist, and singer Dan Whitener, and singer and bassist Brian Farrow, seems unconcerned with parceling out parameters, and instead pursue the possibilities that their varied contributions have to offer.

“I wasn’t even thinking about it being a bold crossover,” Rench once told Bluegrass Today. “It was just the sound that I wanted to hear, and my only thought was just having fun with it.”

To be sure, rap is a predominant element in Gangstagrass’ musical arsenal, and it’s used to convey an ongoing message that champions racial equality, outrage over oppression, and the need to speak up for those that have been subjected to indignity and marginalization within the American malaise. In track after track, they address these issues, giving them extra emphasis on songs such as Freedom, What I Am, and Do Better in particular. There’s no attempt to temper the outrage or insistence, and there’s a decided defiance that’s leveled throughout. While banjo, guitar, and fiddle dutifully provide the accompaniment, bluegrass mostly gives way to bravado and a concerted determination to tangle with tradition.

That said, at least two of these entries take a cue from familiar sources. A somewhat subdued take on the vintage chestnut Hard Times Come No More (featuring special guest Kaia Kater on vocals and fiddle), and the classic folk anthem This Land Is Your Land (retitled here simply as Your Land) maintain their original melodies to a large degree, but enhance the messaging with raps that emphasize stronger sentiments. Indeed, any band that titles an album No Time for Enemies is clearly intent on instilling passion in their purpose.

Ultimately, there’s no denying the fact that these wildly diverse elements make for the most bizarre bedfellows imaginable. That they actually manage to cozy up comfortably is nothing short of extraordinary.

Gangstagrass continues stylistic mashup on No Time For Enemies

For as long as we’ve been covering the bluegrass music scene, even before The Bluegrass Blog was absorbed by Bluegrass Today, we’ve had our eye on Gangstagrass. This genre-bending outfit takes the banjo and fiddle out of the mountains and brings them downtown where they mix with contemporary beats and hip hop vocals.

While not everyone’s cup of tea, the compelling sound of Gangstagrass is the brainchild of the Brooklyn-based audio engineer and producer who goes by the name of Rench, who has generated a strong following for their music across a wide spectrum of music consumers.

The group consists of Rench on guitar, vocals, and beats, assisted by Dan Whitener on banjo, Brian Farrow on fiddle, and R-SON the Voice of Reason and Dolio the Sleuth on vocals. They stick with the tried-and-true song format, featuring a rap breakdown, that gives Gangstagrass an interesting urban/rural, black/white edge.

Their latest album, No Time For Enemies, keeps with this pattern on a mix of new and standard material. Mostly created by members of the group, it also contains guest contributions, like this mashup of styles on the old Stephen Foster classic, Hard Times, featuring vocalist Kaia Kater. Rench maintains the tragic beauty of this timeless melody, setting it against more raucous rhymes from the hippity hoppers in the band.

You get a more typical expression of the Gangstagrass vibe on Ride With You, a Rench original, which uses a county-flavored chord progression and melody, punctuated by the voice percussion and lyric repetition more common in the hip hop world. Noteworthy in their music, however, is the more upbeat tone of the raps, which seek to lift up more than tear down, and don’t wallow in the narcissism and nihilism that often marks this art form.

Whitener, who also goes by Danjo, says the paradox of the genre mashup shouldn’t really be seen as odd.

“Bluegrass and hip-hop have more in common than you might think, and that’s obvious throughout our new album, No Time For Enemies. At their core, both genres are all about authentic storytelling. And whether it’s a new original song like Ride With You, or a 170-year-old tune by Stephen Foster like Hard Times Come Again No More, there’s a shared theme of tough times and enduring hardship. We bridge the gap between centuries by talking about what’s behind us and what’s to come. Rench’s half-realistic, half-optimistic hook from Ride With You says ‘the future is a bumpy ride… I wanna ride with you,’ while R-SON’s chilling verse from Hard Times ends by reminding us that the present isn’t as rosy as we would like to think, saying ‘hard times are still here’.”

And they always will be.

Their music clearly won’t appeal to all bluegrass lovers, many of whom become agitated when any other sound infiltrates the music they treasure, but many others – especially those who already appreciate rap and hip hop – will find its charm.

No Time For Enemies is widely available now wherever you stream or download music online.

Bluegrass Beyond Borders: Gangstagrass takes their sound to a decidedly new destination

Bluegrass and hip hop are rarely spoken of in the same context. And the fusion of the two forms puts the band Gangstagrass beyond those borders in the strictest sense. Indeed, this intrepid ensemble has managed to make a bold statement by plying banjos and fiddles with rap and beats.

Rench, the founder and original mastermind behind this otherwise unlikely idea, began his career as a rapper, emcee, producer and singer/songwriter well before coming up with the idea of combining a traditional bluegrass sound with elements spawned from an urban influence. Granted, it’s not what most people on either side of this musical divide might be accustomed to. It’s likely that even fewer might think it could work. And yet, the combination has worked surprisingly well. Gangstagrass found immediate acceptance when they scored the theme song for the FX series, Justified, while garnering themselves an Emmy nomination for their efforts. A series of studio albums and their recent live effort, Pocket Full of Fire, reaped similar success, with the new release climbing to the heights of the bluegrass charts. Their audiences adore them, making it little wonder that they’ve become festival favories in the process.

The band currently consists of Rench (vocals, guitars, beats) Dan Whitener (banjo, vocals), R-Son The Voice of Reason (vocals), Dolio The Sleuth (vocals), and Brian Farrow (fiddle), and the sound they create offers due credence to both of the disciplines they draw from.

We recently had the opportunity to rap with Rench and ask him to offer his insights into why and how their music works as well as it does.

For starters, can you give us an idea of your early influences?

My dad exposed me to a lot of honky tonk as a kid…lots of Hank, Willie, and George Jones, and also Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers… so I got to branch out there into a broader mix. But when I was in third grade, all I wanted to listen to was hip-hop. Beat Street and the Breakin’ movies came out, and my friends would spend recess breakdancing. The first record I got on my own was a 45 of Rockit by Herbie Hancock. It was the hot breakdancing track at the time. The next couple years was a lot about RUN-DMC and the Beastie Boys.

When you first came up with the idea for Gangstagrass, did you have any concerns about the pushback with such a bold crossover?

I had no trepidation. I wasn’t even thinking about it being a bold crossover. It was just the sound that I wanted to hear, and my only thought was just having fun with it. I was learning more about Gram Parsons and how he was crossing genres, and I was just feeling like that’s what it’s all about. I wanted something with breakbeats and steel guitars and record scratching and fiddles. There wasn’t much out there to provide it, so the only thing was to start experimenting.

Do you feel like your music might be helping to narrow the cultural divide in any way?

It feels like the country is becoming a Hatfields and McCoys reunion or something. I definitely feel like this image we’ve gotten of a rural vs. urban divide has been used to keep us disconnected. There are so many stories showing us the worst of each other, rather than how much we may struggle with the same things. We get scared of each other, and that is very dangerous. I hope something really changes on that, but in our little corner of music, we want take any opportunity we can to represent how things you might think are so different can actually be awesome together, and how we can find common ground we didn’t know we had.

In the case of the music industry, the public was given the impression of separate southern music for white and black audiences with the first recorded music in the 1920s. That was so they could sell music to segregated audiences, and that worked its way deep into our music and our culture. We want to draw that back and show how that was a lie, that southern music was blending and bleeding across racial and cultural lines. The banjo was an African instrument, and there were prevalent black and multi-racial early string bands that developed the foundation of music that was artificially separated into “race records” and “hillbilly records,” and eventually into blues versus country music.

So we see ourselves as a bit of a family reunion. We’re saying that American music has mixed roots and a mixed future.

So what kind of reaction have you gotten from both the bluegrass and rap camps?

We get a ton of love from both bluegrass and rap audiences. What we find is that so many music fans already have eclectic tastes. They don’t actually confine their playlists to one genre or another. They are simply looking for the good stuff. So when we show up, it’s not even about people looking at us from the perspective of being a hip-hop head or a country music fan. They’re often both… and a whole bunch more.

So where to from here?

We are currently in our 12th week near the top of the bluegrass charts with our live album release Pocket Full Of Fire, and there are more videos and bonus content coming from that. New material is getting written and road-tested to take us into the next phase of evolving our sound. The next studio album is going to be totally crazy.

All For One video from Gangstagrass

Gangstagrass, a hip-hop/bluegrass hybrid outfit from Brooklyn, has a new music video for their latest release, All For One. While not likely to please hard-core traditionalists (I’m talking to you, Dennis Jones), bluegrass lovers with an ear for different sounds may enjoy the way they mix urban and grassy rhythms, banjo with beats, and visual images that proclaim our similarities as opposed to our differences.

The group is the brainchild of a mixmaster who goes by Rench. He made his bones with the theme for Justified, a popular modern day western drama that airs on the FX channel.

Rench plays guitar and writes the lyrics and the beats, with assistance from Dan Whitener on banjo, Landry McMeans on reso-guitar, Adriel Williams on fiddle, and R-Son The Voice of Reason and Dolio The Sleuth on vocals.

That’s Rench at the end of the video, chowing down on the river rat.

You can follow the exploits of Gangstagrass online.

Dana & Lauren – Hip Hop’n grass

Dana & Lauren, formerly The Shankman twins, have released a debut video from their new, self-titled CD.

It’s an odd musical pairing, featuring Dana on banjo and Lauren on fiddle offering up a grassy remake of Tupac Shakur’s 1995 hit, California Love. And like the GangstaGrass vibe that has grabbed attention through the soundtrack for TNT’s popular Justified series, Dana & Lauren’s cut has a quirky charm that may find its own audience with adherents from both camps.

The video also blurs distinctions between bluegrass and white-girl hip hop. Check it out.

This track is the lone cover included on the new Dana & Lauren EP, the other three being originals from the girls. Check it out in iTunes.

Cumberland River on Justified tonight

We’ve posted a few times about the FX original program Justified, and the bluegrass-tinged music they use during the show’s soundtrack.

It started with Rench, a hip hop artist who (as Ganstagrass) incorporates bluegrass elements in his music beds. He landed a track on the show, and wrote/produced the show’s theme song.

Now, Kentucky bluegrass boys Cumberland River will see five songs from their 2010 album, Rock Island Express, featured in this week’s edition of Justified. The show airs tonight (4/6) on the FX network at 10:00 p.m. (EDT).

The band came to the attention of the show’s producers last summer while this current season was being filmed on location in Harlan County, KY. After angling an opportunity to perform for members of the production company, they quickly wrote a song called Justified that paid tribute to the hard scrabble, coal mining folks pictured in the program.

The song ended up being used earlier this year as the opening theme, and is now available for purchase online.

Justified: [http://www.hoperiverentertainment.com/audio/clip-jusified-cumberland-river-band.mp3]

Cumberland River is currently finishing up a new CD, with Steve Gulley producing, that is set for release later this year on Rural Rhythm. Gulley says that the guys are cut from the same cloth as the gritty characters on Justified.

“They are real mountain men with a story to tell and a unique, special way of telling it. If you’re looking for pure, honest music full of unabashed emotion, look no further. You’ve found it! Cumberland River is raw emotion personified.”

Check out the show tonight for a chance to hear Cumberland River on TV.

And if that isn’t enough of a bluegrass vibe for the show, consider this: one of the main characters, Boyd Clement, is played by Walton Goggins, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Barry Bales, bass player with Alison Krauss & Union Station.

What’s not to love?

Gangstagrass nominated for Emmy

The hip-hop/bluegrass mashup known as Gangstagrass has been nominated for an Emmy.

The Gangstagrass track Long Hard Times To Come serves as the theme song to the FX series Justified. The track has been nominated for an Emmy in the category Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music. Emmy winners will be announced on August 29, 2010, so we won’t know until then if the unique blend of hip-hop and bluegrass will take home the prize. Similar to other awards programs, there are five finalists in each category.

Rench and Tone-Z, the principle musical forces behind, were not expecting such recognition.

“I am excited that Justified is getting recognized with an Emmy nomination for having a great theme song. The show took a leap and used Gangstagrass, and it is great to see them rewarded for taking a chance on something creative and unusual. T.O.N.E-z and I are still in shock that we are Emmy nominated.” – Oscar “Rench” Owens

Long Hard Times To Come was produced for use in TV show, but Rench and Tone-Z also teamed up to produce a full length CD of bluegrass/hip-hop music. The CD is titled Gangstagrass: Lighting On The Strings, Thunder On The Mic. If you’re interested, check it out, but be warned, this isn’t your grandmother’s bluegrass!

Read our previous post about the CD for audio samples and some comments directly from the producer.

Gangstagrass returns with new CD

Brance has posted a couple of times about Gangstagrass, the brainchild of New York artist Rench. His concept involves mixing the acoustic sound of bluegrass instruments and rhythms with hip hop beats and rhymes. It may not please purists in either genre, but anyone open to clever musical cross-pollination – and especially those who follow both styles – should be interested in what he is doing.

The caliber of Rench’s efforts brought him to the attention of the producers of the FX television series Justified, and he now provides the theme music for the program.

Gangstagrass has a new CD out this month, Lightning On The Strings, Thunder On The Mic, which features Rench on vocals, beats and guitar, Matt Check on vocals and banjo, Todd Livingston on reso guitar, Jason Cade on fiddle, Roy Shimmyo on bass, Jen Larson on vocals and PREPMODE on turntable. It also features rapper T.O.N.E-Z, who appears in the pieces used on Justified (Long Hard Times To Come and On The Run).

Rench shared a few words with us last week about the new CD, and agreed to let us post several complete tracks here on Bluegrass Today. We also discussed how he hooked up with the folks from FX. I started by asking whether he was seeing a large impact from the TV exposure.

“Definitely. Every week there is a new rush of people finding Gangstagrass online after seeing the theme song on the show. It is fantastic.

Initially, the people producing promos (commercials) for the show found Gangstagrass, and wanted to use some for the promos. They chose On The Run from the original Gangstagrass album. That had an unlicensed sample (from an old Lonnie Johnson recording) so we had to record some new vocals and guitar to replace it.

The producers of the show saw the promos and decided that was the sound they wanted for the theme music, so we recorded Long Hard Times To Come with all original musicians for that.”

One track from Lightning On The Strings, Thunder On The Mic that is getting a lot of attention already is In My Aching Heart Shadows Linger, which features bluegrass singer Jen Larson, who performs with New Jersey based Straight Drive. It’s probably the grassiest track on the CD, and the contrast between Jen’s and T.O.N.E-Z’s voices really is intriguing.

I asked Rench if he was getting thumbs up from both the bluegrass and hip hop camps.

“Yes, positive reactions from both sides, and there is a ton of excitement about Jen Larson’s singing on the track. The hip-hop heads all think it is butter on the street. I was excited to get Jen on the album. She is one of my favorite bluegrass singers.”

In My Aching Heart Shadows Linger: [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/shadows_linger.mp3]

Here are two more tracks from the new CD. First up is an instrumental called Click Ol’ Gun, a reworking of Cluck Ol’ Hen.

Click Ol’ Gun: [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/clickolgun.mp3]

Big Branch is another that Rench is proud for us to feature…

“This track features Tomasia rapping about the Upper Big Branch mine and life in mining towns, which I think takes the whole integration of hip-hop and country elements to another level.”

Big Branch: [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/big_branch.mp3]

Rench says that he is currently working on turning Gangstagrass into a live act, which will include rapping and live bluegrass (fiddle, banjo, dobro, bass) playing to pre-recorded beats.

You can find further details and hear more audio on the Gangstagrass web site. If you are offended by salty language, be forewarned.