Celebrated hip-hop/bluegrass hybrid Gangstagrass release their most anticipated single to date, ‘Nickel and Dime Blues‘, on Friday, May 15th via AntiFragile Music. This single will serve as a prelude to the group’s new album, No Time For Enemies, due July 24, 2020. The band has been writing and producing music during the COVID-19 lock down, to bring the world upbeat and inspiring messages of solidarity and struggle.
“I am thrilled that we signed Gangstagrass and releasing this forthcoming album, their nonpareil blend of hip hop and bluegrass had me hooked from the very first note hearing them at Folk Alliance 2019, their music fuses two of our greatest musical genres into a singularly unique impactful sound”- Tom Sarig – President, AntiFragile Music
In an era when the social, racial, musical and economic divisions between Americans have become more strained, Gangstagrass is providing a glimpse of the kind of conversations about race and power that we could be having if we were ready to listen.
Thematically, No Time For Enemies grapples with the dual crises of race relations and politics in modern day America. ‘Nickel and Dime Blues’ stays on this track, speaking on issues such as financial insecurity and healthcare. ‘Nickel and Dime Blues’ showcases the band’s Bluegrass side, with the pickers grooving against a funky clap track. Dan Whitener sings lead and follows a poor worker into a pharmacy where he is unable to afford medicine, a liquor store to discover he can’t afford to buy a bottle to sooth his worries and ultimately to prison.
Fiddle, banjo and scratching fill the space between country crooning and raps describing widely shared hardships. “We believe in talking about the economic struggle,” Rench says. “These are things folks across the country can relate to – rural and urban, black and white – despite thinking that they’re so different. We have to unlock solidarity.”
“Well I went on down to the corner store Just to get a little bottle of pills
Cause the man on the television told me There’s a cure for all my ills
Well I walked on up to the counter And I told him what I had
He said “You ain’t got no money, You can’t afford to be feeling so bad”
– Nickel and Dime Blues
The music on the new Gangstagrass release, No Time For Enemies, is upbeat, but the lyrics are more political than previous fare. “As a multi-racial band, that bridges American musical cultures, we walk the walk when we sing about getting real on the subject of racism.”
Blending Bluegrass, electro beats and Hip-Hop seems like an unlikely recipe for success, but that mix has taken Gangstagrass to the top of the Bluegrass charts. Their recent live album, Pocketful of Fire, spent almost 20 weeks in the Top Ten. The band packs concert halls, Rock and Country music clubs and festivals with impressive live shows, featuring their hybrid of Jam Band improvisation, prodigious Bluegrass chops and socially conscious rapping. “Too many people are seeing each other as enemies, when they could be communicating and finding common ground” says Rench, the band’s founder and producer, “if anything, this pandemic is showing so clearly how connected we all are, we just need to realize that those connections run down to our part in poverty and racism.”
Gangstagrass first gained national attention with ‘Long Hard Times To Come’, the Emmy nominated Theme Song of the FX Series Justified. FX asked Rench to write a song for their new Western crime series. The result was the Emmy nominated ‘Long Hard Times To Come’, the song that opens every episode of the series. Since then, the band has made four studio albums and a live album.
GANGSTAGRASS
