Baptiste and Sylvester met while attending Dillard High School of Performing Arts in Florida. Since the beginning they have been altering the perception of what a string duo can achieve sonically through a genre-defying mix of classical, hip-hop, R&B, electronica and other musical styles.
The classically trained musicians have worked with an eclectic array of musicians including Alicia Keys, Tom Petty, Lil Wayne and Aerosmith. In 2019, they expanded their mission for musical philanthropy with the creation of the Black Violin Foundation, which provides arts and music education to more than 100,000 students annually.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
In the studio
The duo self-released a pair of albums on its own DiVersatile label, “Black Violin” (2008) and “Classically Trained” (2012). Black Violin released its lone major label offering, “Stereotypes” (2016), with Universal Music Group before returning to the independent model for “Take the Stairs” (2109) and the holiday themed, “Give Thanks” (2020). A new studio full-length is planned for 2024.
“We’re working on an album to hopefully be released next year,” Baptiste said. “We started working on it about a month ago and it’s going well. One of the unique things about this record is we’ve included everyone in the band. With this album we basically locked ourselves in a studio for about a week-and-a-half and we really created a vibe. It felt good. It felt natural since we play together all the time. Having the whole band on there will give it a very distinctive vibe from previous albums, so I’m looking forward to it.”
According to Baptiste, it’s important to seek out ways to stimulate creativity.
“It’s definitely (a) challenge but it’s the challenge that makes it unique, special and worthwhile,” he said. “We’ve been doing a lot of recording in Miami but we’re still in the beginning stages. We have shows into late October. The plan is, when we get off the road, we’ll get back in the studio. We’ll take a few trips to L.A., where our executive producers live.”
The new year
While 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the group forming in Florida, Baptiste isn’t revealing any special plans to commemorate the occasion.
“We don’t have any plans yet but I’m sure we’ll come up with something for next year,” Baptiste said. “It’s definitely impressive to be able to be doing this for as long as we have. We’re really focused on the album right now and other than that, we have a new documentary we’re trying to finalize.”
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
On the stage
Unlike previous tours, Black Violin is out with an opening act, Son Little, for this stretch of dates, including their return to the Schuster Center courtesy of Dayton Live.
“We typically don’t have an opener, but we wanted to experiment and see how it would be,” Baptiste said. “Moving forward we want to be able to collaborate with different artists, even artists bigger than us. We’d like to collaborate and tour with those artists just to see how it would be.
“Son Little was available, so it worked out,” Baptiste continued. “He’s really dope. He’s kind of an acoustic guitarist and vocalist. It’s going well so far. We’re excited to be back in Dayton. The show is going to be incredible. It’s going to be a typical Black Violin concert. We went through our catalog and pulled some songs we haven’t performed in a while, so it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or donthrasher100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
Who: Black Violin
Where: Schuster Center, 1 W. Second St., Dayton
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24
Cost: $20-$140
More info: 937-228-3630 or www.daytonlive.org
Artist info: blackviolin.net
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