Reshaping America's Soundtrack: Gangstagrass’ Role In Bridging The Religion Divide
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(OPINION) In a divided America, music is just another means of dividing based on political affiliation and race. While country music has the image of being “all-American,” hip-hop often sheds light on the social injustices toward minority people.
When listening to music, it can seem as if there is no unity among people from different backgrounds. However, Gangstagrass is fighting back against that narrative by bringing people from two different genres together.
Gangstagrass started in 2006, when band member Rench started mixing fiddle music with rap. The band got its big break when its song “Long Hard Times To Come” became the theme for the TV show “Justified” in 2010. At the time, politics wasn’t a factor. Gangstagrass just wanted to make good music.
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The band takes musical influences from both bluegrass and hip-hop, borne out of the similarities between the two rather than the differences. The Gangstagrass band consists of Rench (guitar and beats), R-son the Voice of Reason (vocals), Dolio the Sleuth (vocals), Dan Whitener (banjo) and Brian Farrow (fiddle).
“A lot of the aesthetic is the same as are the stories of people’s lives that are in the songs,” said R-Son in an interview with Americana Highways. “I mean we’re all still working for somebody, we’re all still working ridiculous hours and we’re all going through our own individual struggles. But through hip-hop and bluegrass, we are all also able to get out and tell a lot of our stories by expressing them through music.”
R-Son’s descriptions of both genres are precise. Bluegrass, which became popular by Bill Monroe, was largely created in Appalachia by immigrants of Irish and Scottish descent. Instruments such as the banjo, guitar, fiddle, bass and mandolin make up upbeat bluegrass music. Hip-hop, however, was born in the 1970s out of the Bronx borough of New York City by African Americans. Turntables, sample music and beatboxing helped make the new genre in those days. Today, it’s one of the most popular genres in the world.
In a recent New York Times article, “This is the Music America Needs” the band emphasized the need for people of different backgrounds to come together and talk. Rench hopes that the music made by the band reduces the fear of each other because “the rise of authoritarianism and fascism really depends on people being separated.”
While Jason Aldean's “Try This In A Small Town” faced some backlash, the song reached No. 1 on the country music charts. The music video showed footage of people rioting and fighting against cops. The original music video on YouTube had video of Black Lives Matter demonstrations of 2020, but the footage was later removed.
Coincidentally, the video didn’t show footage of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia; the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol; or the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket. A person watching the video could wonder if violence is condemned only if the people come from a certain demographic or political party. Understandably, many Americans felt some uneasiness over the song. In an Instagram post from Gangstagrass, Rench mocked the song and expressed how “weird” it was.
Gangstagrass understands the unique position it holds in helping both parties come together and find common ground. In July, the band worked with Braver Angels, a movement that works to bring people of different political views together. Gangstagrass participated in the Breaver Angels national convention. The band attended and held a workshop on depolarizing American music. The group explained that during the Jim Crow era, music started to be separated into White or Black, perpetuating the gap between the races.
“The artificial segregation of spaces was imposed by record label marketing branches; it’s a whole microcosm of the history (of the music industry),” Whitener told Forbes. “They want to put it in a box and sell it as a product. Initially, putting white and black music together seems like this new thing, but the more you look into the context, you see that we’re really reuniting things that have been pushed apart.”
During the convention, the band got to work with 12 musicians. Half were liberal, the others conservative. They wrote songs about education and democracy. The heartfelt song “I feel like something is broken” was written, and it captured the essence of what both political parties feel.
Some common ground was found among them, but some beliefs remained in stark opposition. The education song faced the most struggles because of the different beliefs surrounding faith. During the brainstorming phase of the song “Marya Djalal,” a teacher suggested a lyric about a child being molded by the maker’s hands. That reference to God set off an intense debate about religion in public schools. In the end, R-son advised that it was best not to promote one faith over another. As a result, the “maker’s hands” line was removed.
“It’s pretty amazing to see a bunch of people I didn’t know before a few days ago dancing to a band I had never heard of — and now I couldn’t imagine my life without the music and this movement,” said Andrew Garrett, one of the songwriters. “It’s an amazing community that came out of nowhere but actually feels like it’s going to sustain.”
This got me thinking about my conservatism. While I’m more politically conservative on some topics, my political party doesn’t define me. I can see the nuances of the problems in this country. There are many scenarios where some common ground can be found. Faith, however, isn’t an issue where people can find common ground. As a Christian, God and his ways must be central to our lives. That loyalty to God alone causes great opposition from people — especially when beliefs are involved. It does not surprise me that the songwriters had the hardest time once faith was brought up.
Even though all topics can’t be mended, Gangstagrass is doing good work bringing people together.
Princess Jones is a freelance writer based in North Carolina. Jones was a features editorial assistant at The New York Post and has worked for Religion Unplugged and the New York Amsterdam News. She is an alumna of Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee, and of the NYC Semester in Journalism program at The King’s College in New York City.