At the Philly Folk Festival, bluegrass and hip-hop band Gangstagrass is ‘the Blackest thing on the menu’

The concept behind Gangstagrass — the Brooklyn- and Philly-based hip-hop meets bluegrass band that headlines the Philadelphia Folk Festival on Friday, Aug. 16 — might sound like a novel combination.

But not for fans of Justified, the FX crime drama starring Timothy Olyphant as a U.S. marshal meting out justice in Appalachia.

For six seasons from 2010 to 2015, each episode began with “Long Hard Times to Come,” a country rap banger created by Gangstagrass founder Rench that blended hip-hop beats with fiddle, banjo, and Resonator guitar, earning an Emmy nomination in 2010.

Do the math: That means the genre blending of Gangstagrass predates the current conversation about the shared Black roots of country and hip-hop, spurred by Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter, by nearly a decade and a half. Its members, since 2011, have been Rench and Philly rappers R-Son the Voice of Reason and Dolio the Sleuth.

From Gangstagrass’ 2010′s Lightning on the Strings, Thunder on the Mic and 2012′s Rappalachia through to last year’s The Blackest Thing on the Menu, the country-rap mash-up has simply made musical sense to Rench, whose given name is Oscar Owens.

He recently spoke to The Inquirer via Zoom from his home in Brooklyn, joined by Dolio (Durant Lawrence) from his home in South Philly and R-Son (Randy Owen), who Zoomed in while on lunch break from his job selling eye glasses in Warminster.

Rench, who is white, is from California. “But my Dad’s from Oklahoma, and I grew up with a lot of honky-tonk music on the stereo,” he said.

Along with the George Jones, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson records Rench heard at home, “hip-hop culture was exploding everywhere in the 1980s. Third grade for me was about putting down some cardboard to break dance to the Beat Street soundtrack or Run-DMC. Those were the two big influences.”

As a hip-hop producer in New York in the ‘00s, Rench went on a Ralph Stanley bluegrass binge and realized the high-speed roots music “could integrate with beats and MCs really well.”

Songs Rench posted online got attention from music blogs, and Justified’s producers came calling, seeking to soundtrack a show about a lawman who leaves Detroit to return home to Kentucky. Novelist Elmore Leonard, who created the show’s protagonist, Raylan Givens, became a Gangstagrass fan after hearing the theme song.

Dolio, who grew up in Pensacola, Fla. and R-Son, a Philly native — both Black men — had an appreciation for country music before joining Gangstagrass.

“We would watch Soul Train on Saturdays and Hee Haw on Sundays,” says Dolio. “Country is a lot more pervasive in the South. When I was growing up, there was a lot of commingling of the genres. The honky tonks and the juke joints were pretty much the same. It didn’t seem too far off to hear a country song on what would be considered Black radio.”

So when Dolio met Rench after moving to New York in the ‘00s, merging country with hip-hop “was a no-brainer for me. And as an MC, I’m always up for the challenge of rocking to any beat.”

Moving to Philly a few years later, Dolio met R-Son, who lives in Mount Airy and records as a solo artist and with the hip-hop group Mental Advisory and with Gangstagrass, which he proudly proclaims to be “the world’s greatest hip-hop and bluegrass band” on his Bandcamp page.

“My Dad was into Kenny Rogers and the Charlie Daniels Band,” says R-Son. “And he and my Mom both love Dolly Parton. So when Rench and Dolio approached me with the idea of Gangstagrass, I thought, ‘OK, that sounds interesting.’”

In 2021, Gangstagrass made a run to the quarterfinals on NBC’s America’s Got Talent — Howie Mandel called them “the recipe America has been looking for until now.” In 2022, they released a Christmas collection, Sugarplums & Whiskey.

The band, which is heading to play two festivals in England the week after Philly Folk, has been successful in building a following in Europe.

“Their radio is not so siloed by genre,” says Dolio. “They’re used to a diversity of sound.”

Rench adds: “We go over there, and to them it’s not Black, it’s not white. We’re just combining American music with American music.” American Music is also the name of a 2015 Gangstagrass album.

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The Blackest Thing on the Menu features dobro great Jerry Douglas on the opening, “The Only Way Out Is Through,” and banjo by Dan “Danjo” Whitener, and the fiddle player B.E. Farrow throughout.

“Sankofa” and “Mother” explore the complex musical heritage of American vernacular music, and stand up for racial justice.

“I’m coming back for everything that’s mine,” Dolio raps on the former. “The bill’s been paid by my ancestors down the line.” On “Mother,” R-Son rhymes about reparations: “They say bravery is favored by fortune, the enslaved don’t want the world, just their fair portion.”

Despite the tradition of Black and white artists mixing country and rap — from mainstream Nashville acts like Cowboy Troy to “Wicked & Weird” indie rappers such as Buck 65, the Gangstagrass blend can befuddle industry gatekeepers. “People are still like, ‘Wait: What? Hip-hop and bluegrass? That’s not a thing, is it?” said R-Son.

But “the Beyoncé effect” has been positive, Dolio said. ”It’s driven more people to us and also our friends like Allison Russell and Rhiannon Giddens in this space.”

Gangstagrass enjoys gatherings like Philly Folk — where Black country-folk singer and historian Dom Flemons is also on the schedule — as opportunities to demonstrate the common improvisational spirit in seemingly disparate genres.

“Bluegrass and hip-hop actually have really similar traditions,” said Rench. “They’re both essentially folk musics made by people without a lot of resources that they can meet up and create on the spot.”

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Back in 2023, a Pensacola blues-themed soul food restaurant’s menu inspired the name of The Blackest Thing on the Menu. The band was playing a festival there on Juneteenth and “it was a Juneteenth-themed menu,” Dolio said. “There was a lot of spicy stuff and blackened this and blackened that. Our fiddle player at the time asked the waitress for ‘the Blackest thing on the menu.’”

“Later, Rench said, ‘That should be the title of the album.’

“And so many other meanings came out of it. When you think of blackened, you think of something that’s real flavorful and spicy. And it signifies that when we are on the road playing some of these folk and Americana festivals, we usually are the Blackest thing on the menu.”

The Philadelphia Folk Festival will be held at the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township, Montgomery County, near Schwenksville, from Aug. 16 to 18. For tickets, performance schedule, and general information, go to folkfest.org. On Saturday, Aug. 17, on the PFF’s Camp Stage, R-Son will lead a workshop called “Off the Dome: Impromptu Creation and Building Lyricism.” (GPS coordinates: 40.2891° N, 75.4522° W)