Chill Moody and Philadelphia Orchestra bring hip-hop to The Mann
The show was a joyful and elegant mashup of hip-hop, classical music, and gospel chants that celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
The Mann Center was ablaze with cell phone lights and good vibes in July evening for Darin Atwater’s Black Metropolis, featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and rapper-turned-entrepreneur, Chill Moody.
As The Mann Center’s inaugural community-artist-in-residence, Chill Moody, whose real name is Eric Moody, has spent the last few months uniting classical music musicians and contemporary performers to celebrate the way humans vibe together through art. Wednesday night’s event was the first time the full Orchestra performed with a hip-hop artist.
“The underlying connection between hip-hop and classical music is in understanding what classical music was,” Moody said, as he explained how classical music was the contemporary sounds of the 15th and 16th centuries. “When these songs actually first came out, they were playing them on boats and for coronations. He [Atwater] likens it to Big Pimpin’,” he said, referencing Jay-Z’s 1999 hit “Big Pimpin.”
The show was a joyful and elegant mashup of hip-hop, classical music, and gospel chants that celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. The musicians were joined by Wendell Patrick, a professor, composer, beatmaker, and pianist, who served as the night’s DJ, augmenting the strings, percussion instruments and Moody’s socially aware raps with scratches so well-placed, hip-hop heads were left with goosebumps.