Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Phil Collins. Bob Dylan and Michael Bolton. Wale and Lady Gaga. The music industry is filled with unlikely combinations and collaborations – some more successful than others. But few are as unexpected as Gangstagrass, a collective that combines hip-hop and bluegrass.
Gangstagrass is a serious and sincere exploration of the meeting point between bluegrass and rap music. “People hear us talk about it, and they imagine something really bad,” Rench said of the group. “The best exposure is when somebody hears us before we’ve described it to them. When they hear it, it’s ‘Oh, OK. Yeah, that works.’”
"Goes beyond pairing laconic rappers and energetic turntablists with background harmonies and fiddling. Rench sings with a slow drawl about job losses, striving, union organizing, and other socialist concerns." - The New Yorker
“A mixture of bluegrass and hip-hop that might repel some purists on either side of the country-and-rap divide, but will knock the socks off just about everybody else.” - Wall Street Journal
“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.” - Elmore Leonard