BREAKING STEREOTYPES:

Comprising a space incorporating both classical music and hip hop, Black Violin never thought it would take a pandemic to create Give Thanks, but that's what happens when you tour 150 days a year and suddenly find yourselves under quarantine. Despite the circumstances, this collection is unlike virtually any other holiday music you've heard, with violin and viola being the key instruments throughout.

Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste have been playing together for quite a while. For Marcus playing the violin created a certain perception, "I'm a big black dude: six foot two, always been heavyset, and early on I realized that when I would tell people that I play the violin, the perception of who I am, the possibility of what I could be, was altered to them."

When approaching Give Thanks, they reached a decision that the music should be half covers and half originals, with the common element being their violin playing. Yet there is very little traditional about what they have created. "Give Thanks," a traditional-sounding number except for the electronic beats and vocals repeating the song's title, sets the tone and establishes the way Black Violin looks at music. They find a way to blend two divergent musical worlds, allowing them to go back and forth opening the doors between formats that usually tend to exclude rather than being inclusive.

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