Uniquely Boston: Hip Hop Violinist
- NBC 10
You may not think the violin has much of a place in hip hop, but Rhett Price, an artist in Allston is changing minds and winning over fans.
The problem was that Chaitoo appeared to be performing over tracks Price had recorded and posted online himself. The eye-opening discovery launched Price on a journey that has shed light on the limits of copyright law in the age of user-generated content and the vagaries of fame in the Internet era.
Debuting at No. 10 on the iTunes Alternative EP chart, the album has also made waves on Billboard’s Classical Crossover (No. 12) and Classical (No. 27) lists. And while that range of genre classifications might seem strange, the spectrum makes perfect sense for a guy with a pop star’s ambition and a long-held desire to show a younger and wider audience how diverse violin music can be. “I love when people think one of my songs is a cover,” he said, commenting on the fact that his original tunes have the same pop panache of the radio anthems he’s become known for covering on YouTube.
Think of: A mad violinist with roots in Texas country, a background in saxophone, and some training at Berklee College of Music to boot. Price’s epic stylings of contemporary songs have saved him from the rough days where he slept on park benches and friend’s kitchen floors, and helped him book private parties at venues like New York’s elite Core Club.
In a sea of off-key wailers and tin can drummers, there are the select subway performers who actually blow our minds. In the video Rhett Price and Josh Knowles, who simply call themselves the Subway Violinists, expertly perform Taylor Swift's pop hit "I Knew You Were Trouble" in a Boston train station.