Hip-Hop Mozart

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Voted the 3rd Best Classical Moment of 2003 by the New York Times, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is by no means your average classical musician and composer.

As one of the few African-Americans to have danced with Bill T.Jones, played with Philip Glass, and jammed with DJ Spooky, his fusion of classical and hip-hop music has been embraced by orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the United States and he is quickly developing a new and diverse audience for his music elsewhere.

In fact, Daniel was the first artist to perform hip-hop music at Carnegie Hall. I caught up with the boy wonder to discover what it means to be a young, black man in an older, complex, multi-coloured world.

What sparked your interest in classical music and the violin in particular?

I was five years old and my elementary school had an orchestral programme, very rare these days in the States, and it was just something that I wanted to do. I was fortunate enough to have a family that was very supportive, specifically of playing the violin. My mother and father came to every concert I did as a young child. So I had the support of my family, school teachers, and my community in a way. These things combined to have a big influence on propelling me forward in my career.

You’ve won countless awards. Is there an award that you would most like to win, and why?

A Grammy! I’ll tell you why. I’m not gonna lie. I admire so many of those musicians who win Grammies and a lot who don’t by the way. And again it would be a huge international validation of what I’ve been trying to do my whole life. So, we’ll see if that happens. And actually, I’ll tell you even more than that, I would love to win a BRIT Award, man, and be on that live show you guys do. I’m an American so I’ve got to say a Grammy. But I’m not lying: number two would be a BRIT Award. Seriously, I was even talking to Ben Harper about this as you know, and London right now musically is where it’s at! If I could find a way to spend the next two years of my life in London, I would do it. Not only for the music but for political reasons too.

Is race still an issue in the classical arts today?

Absolutely! And there are two ways to look at it. One way would be anger: for many years I was an angry young man rallying against the forces, if you will. Now that I’m older, I’m probably just as angry but a little wiser about it in my approach. I’m not as interested in alienating the very people I’m trying to reach. But sure, racism, sexism, still exists in classical music. And it is changing at the same time. My work is supported. I am Assistant Composer in residence with the Orchestra of Saint Luke, specialists in world class chamber music, and at the very same time I’ve had a lot of critical success in the classical music world. My application and responsibility as a black composer is now to create opportunities for other composers, not only black and minority composers but women composers too. In fact, anyone who is good, that’s the bottom line! Here’s the thing, right now classical music, generally speaking, is still consumed with the notion of white men writing music. Now that’s 90% if not higher of most orchestras’ repertoire. It’s kind of ridiculous if you think about it because, look, that’s not the totality of the human experience. Obviously not!

You’ve worked with a range of musicians and composers including Cassandra Wilson and DJ Spooky. You’ve even been described as the hip hop Mozart. What fuels your desire to merge different musical genres?

That’s the notion in which I grew up in South Florida. South Florida is very diverse. You’ve got Haitian, Bahamans, Dominican Republicans - you just don’t have black Americans alone. And all of these different types of people have their own music they listen to. And, children are children, so in my neighbourhood when we were forming our little rock bands, or whatever, everybody was bringing in their own musical influence. I grew up surrounded by great local musicians, and I mean, great local musicians. Everybody played every instrument and that’s just the way it was. If we needed a drum player, and we didn’t have a drum player, then you played the drums. If you were going to do a gig and they needed jazz music then you’d learn to play jazz. If the next week they wanted rock then you’d do the same again with rock. More recently in my work, I’ve narrowed it down to specifically hip hop and rock music combined with a classical instrument form.

Have you any plans to tour the UK or Europe and why would a European audience connect with your music?

Ooh! I was in Italy in September with Bill T. Jones and company. Man, I’ve got to get to London somehow - maybe you can help me do that? I’d like to hope that I have a European persuasion, I really would. Well, look, my parents are from Haiti and Haiti is such a mix of the Caribbean and the French and the Spanish. You really see that in the culture and in the dialect, even the philosophy identifies much more with European culture than with African-American culture for sure. I think that my music in its use of specifically strings and notation, everything is written down in one way or another, but also in the fact that so much of my music follows classical music forms. Even the funkiest thing that I’m doing will pay a lot of attention to form and those forms are classically based. In so many ways, classical music is much more a European art than not. The other thing is that I’m doing things which for a lot of people are still, believe it or not, kind of radical.

As an African-American of Haitian descent do you spend much time in Haiti and what do you think of the current political situation there?

Actually, I’ve never been to Haiti. It’s something that I didn’t plan, it just happened that way. Now because of the political tensions there, it’s going to be at least another few years before I can realistically go. There are so many very easily understood reasons for what’s going on there: it’s no different from a lot of Pan-African countries. The vacuum in their political leadership combined with a really backward take on an economic structure is just devastating. As an artist what can you do? I’ve written at least a few pieces using Haitian folk melodies in their construction; Haitian Essays is an orchestral piece that I wrote. It’s ironic that whenever Haiti comes to the forefront of our mainstream media here these pieces get played a lot. In that sense, maybe, it brings some consciousness to the arena. One thing I do struggle with as a black American composer of Haitian descent is that America is very compartmentalised, and at the same time the most pervasive part of our life is television and the media. In other words, if it’s not on Billboard’s ‘Top 100’ most people in America won’t even know you exist. They will never have heard of the music or the musician. And you could say the same thing across the board about dance, theatre, television, the movies, books and writing; and I think that is something very different certainly from what’s happening in England. Ironically, in America one of the things we always talk about is free press; it’s our big flagship, we fly that flag high, but it’s not really true.

Do your dreadlocks symbolise anything more profound than a possible liking for reggae?

I’ve been growing my hair long for years, it’s loxed now, but for me it was always like a crown. I’ve a lot of Rastafarian friends and even some family who are very religious and spiritual people. For them, it may be about power, identification and identity, and being able to connect with a shared, I guess, cosmetic aesthetic or a love of reggae. If you suddenly grow your hair long you start to acknowledge and notice other men and women who have grown their hair long. There is an instant bond. I imagine that if I lost an arm I would suddenly have that bond with someone I met who had lost their arm. I’m working on a record right now called Dread Violin and, you know, it reminded me that the locks are something I actually started as a diary believe it or not. When I first moved to New York nine years ago I had shaved my head, and I said, well, you know, I’m gonna start growing my hair again. And in a way the end of my hair is always gonna be the beginning of my life and career here in New York City. So it really just started on that very simple premise. Now, it’s grown – no pun intended – it’s something that I think is a good thing for classical music. I can walk into the Buffalo Philharmonic with tattoos, piercing and dreadlocks and without having to say anything, I’m saying something. And it is something that needs to be said in classical music and it’s something that the younger people who come to these concerts gravitate towards anyway.

What has been the greatest challenge in your life to date?

Balance - probably throughout my life that’s been the through line. When I was younger, trying to balance just having fun with my music lessons. As I got older I tried to balance and reconcile what I wanted to do to make a living against what I could actually do. The only thing I could actually do really well was being a musician. Now that I’m older still, I’m balancing all the things that go behind the career with the actual career itself. Of course, you know, personal life, relationships, got to think about family and all of these things. Yet my life has largely been unbalanced. I haven’t figured it out. I say that proudly, and although music has changed my life, it’s also saved my life.

That’s one thing I try to get people to understand about the arts. Despite all the things people hear about the arts having a therapeutic quality, like they can help you become a smarter person or do better in school, for me, the arts is like a religion. It’s like this friend, literally, that I’ve had all these years. I still have and play the same violin I played when I was five years old twenty-six years ago. I’m thirty-one. This inanimate object, the violin, has been the one constant thing in my life. And look, you can be forty years old and begin a relationship with the piano, and I can tell you that piano will never leave you; will never not stroke you or call you back. I know it sounds a little silly, but it’s not just a piano of course, it’s music. I mean, look, I had the flu the other day and I could do nothing else but listen to some CDs, and I still am constantly amazed at how instant those healing powers are; just listening to a great piece of music or even your mother’s voice, can help you feel just that little bit better.

www.dbrmusic.com

Related Reading:

Just Me

My Word Is My Bond: The Autobiography

Look Who it Is!: My Story

Parky: My Autobiography

The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

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