Music

THIS EXISTS: Gangstagrass introduces bluegrass to hip hop

by Tyler Munro

Every week, This Exists uncovers and explores musical peculiarities that exist in the dark corners of the internet, sometimes just outside the mainstream. Today we take a closer look at Gangstagrass, a  group of New York musicians who’ve somehow managed to mix hip-hop and bluegrass and better yet, make it not just listenable, but pretty good.

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In 2006, Cowboy Troy stormed into the c-rap scene with “I Play Chicken with the Train,” an inexplicably terrible, Big & Rich accompanied smash single that made all our childish “country plus rap equals” jokes come true. Yes, it’s worse than you remember.

A few years earlier Bubba Sparxxx had taken his Bobby Hill meets Timbaland sound of the early naughties and added a bit of that country twang, but even still, the mix wasn’t quite there. Though he went from the typical blinky bounce of 2001’s “Ugly” and meshed it into 2003’s guitar backed “Deliverance,” Sparxxx couldn’t let go of the gimmick: from the hillbilly pageantry of the former to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? influence of the latter, one constant remained. In spite of Sparxxx’s best efforts—we assume, at least—both videos, and thus his image, struggled to come off as anything but a parody. For that, he can thank beatmaker and hook-singer Timbaland, who can be seen in both videos stomping around sarcastically with farming tools and goofy-faced posturing with a guitar. Still, Sparxxx is important because, as minuscule as it may have been, he showed that it was possible to bring the other dirty south sound into hip-hop. And, half a decade later, a bunch of musicians from New York did it right. Oh yes, this exists: ladies and gents, introduce yourselves to Brooklyn’s Gangstagrass.

If you’ve ever seen the show Justified then you’ve heard one of their songs. If you haven’t, watch the video for “Long Hard Times to Come” in full below to get a taste of what Gangstagrass is really about, namely: banjos, bluegrass and beats without the force-fed irony.

Elmore Leonard, the author behind the story from which Justified is adapted, had this to say about their music, “Rench and his friends have done nothing short of creating a new form of music. Gangstagrass takes two types of music that are opposites and mixes them together brilliantly in a way that is natural and enjoyable.”

Rench is the real brains behind the project. With a line-up that can stretch as big as ten deep, Gangstagrass feeds off a community, but its Rench who brought them all together. In addition to producing duties, he also plays the guitar and does vocals. Other members include bassist Roy Shimmyo, banjoist Ellery Marshal, and fiddler Jason Cade.

What’s most remarkable about their sound is how jarring it isn’t. One of the group’s earlier songs was “Pistol Packin,” which takes its name from Jimmie Rodgers 1930 song “Pistol Packing Papa”. The song heavily samples Rodgers original vocals, and lines like “you can hear my new sport roadster, you can take my hard-boil head. But you can’t never take from me my silver-mounted gat,” mesh perfectly with rapper T.O.N.E-z’s flow.

“Trouble Wherever I Go” features local New York folkstress Jen Larson, whose Loretta Lynn-like voice provides a classic country contrast to T.O.N.E-z’s modern hip-hop bombast. The back and fourth is as odd as it is listenable; “never trust a girl with a big butt and a smile, because the game behind her lipstick will leave your ass twisted,” he raps; “it don’t matter how long I struggle, trouble way down in my soul/it don’t matter how far I wander, trouble everywhere I go,” she replies. It shouldn’t work, but as you’ll hear, it really does.

This can be left as a simple recommendation: if you fancy yourself a fan of bluegrass or hip-hop, but especially of both, Gangstagrass’ Lightning On The Strings, Thunder On The Mic is worth a chase down. Of course it’s a novelty, but who says such a thing can’t still be novel? We’ll leave you with bouncy slide of “Put Your Hands Up High.”