Candlelight: 90s Hip Hop on Strings

Candlelight: 90s Hip Hop on Strings at Unity Temple on the Plaza

Four musicians. Candlelight. About sixty minutes of '90s hip-hop favorites reimagined for strings. Fountain City Quartet gives Kansas City a candlelit instrumental tribute that finds another way into familiar rap favorites.

Unity Temple's Sanctuary sets the stage. The catalog reads like a playlist you wore out on repeat: Fugees and Lauryn Hill, Outkast, Missy Elliott, Nas, Jay-Z, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, 2Pac, Biggie. The advertised medleys bring those artists' music into string-quartet territory, inviting you to notice how a familiar idea changes when four players carry it. It's a fresh angle on music you may have known for years.

It's nostalgia, yes, but nostalgia that surprises. You remember the verses, the production, the voices. Tonight you hear the architecture underneath. The quartet's instrumental interpretations put a new spin on music you already recognize. Familiarity becomes part of the fun: you can follow the connections while hearing what the string players make of them.

This isn't a lecture on hip-hop history. It's about an hour of instrumental music that puts the quartet's take on '90s rap at the center. Weird? Maybe. Worth it? Absolutely.

Fountain City Quartet performs Candlelight: 90s Hip-Hop on Strings at Unity Temple on the Plaza November 14. Hear 90s hip-hop favorites reimagined for strings by Fountain City Quartet; get tickets for the candlelit concert at Unity Temple on the Plaza.