The transcendent, 19th-century classical grandeur of Mahler’s Second (“Resurrection” Symphony) seems like an unlikely score to the street-level hip-hop of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. That these heterogeneous worlds can both benefit from their collision is the point of “Resurrection Mixtape.” The piece’s creator, Steve Hackman, will conduct the Richmond Symphony Pops in the piece’s Richmond debut on Saturday, Feb. 3. For the event, hometown hero/Butcher Brown member Marcus Tenney, a.k.a. Tennishu, incarnates Biggie Smalls, the Notorious B.I.G. and Louisville educator and activist Jecorey “1200” Arthur covers Tupac’s segments.
The key to the piece is finding the resonances between seemingly vastly different ends of the musical spectrum. Both informed Hackman’s musical taste when he was training for a classical career at the University of Illinois and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His first fusion creation brought together Radiohead and Brahms (performed by the Richmond Symphony in September 2022); the 19th-century German composer and the 20th-21st century rock band may be unalike on the surface, but their work shares a harmonic and melodic foundation. In a way, those similarities are an obstacle to a real merger.
“From the beginning, I was looking forward to a hip-hop and classical piece. The technique of sampling that is intrinsic in all hip-hop music makes it very apt for this kind of repurposing,” explains Hackman. “The relationship between lyrics, melody and harmony are much more tied to each other in a Radiohead song. In hip-hop, you can transplant a rap over another beat. That interchangeability presented a great opportunity to make something very special happen with this piece.”
The Resurrection Mixtape is Hackman’s third large-scale hip-hop/classical fusion, following widely praised fusions with, first, Tchaikovsky and rap star Drake, then Stravinsky and hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar. The epic narrative sweep of Mahler’s Second starts in tragedy and ends in transcendence. It opens with a funeral, proceeds through the fourth movement towards a portal to the eternal, the opens up in a glorious, heavenly finale. “That, in my mind, made Tupac and Biggie the obvious choices,” Hackman says. “It is the perfect narrative to affix to the story of their rise to superstardom, the tragic deaths that bind them together, and the afterlife of their legacy.”
Hackman adds that Mahler’s Second Symphony is a dream to conduct: “And it is one of those pieces that players love to play. I have been in love with it for almost my entire life,” he says. “It is a great opportunity to introduce symphonic music through the music of Tupac and Biggie. I think of their indelible influence. There are murals of them around the world. You see their images on T-shirts worn by kids on every continent. To me, it is an affirmation that after this life there is something else.”
The artists’ most iconic songs, including Tupac’s “Dear Mama” and “California Love,” and Smalls’ “Juicy B,” and “Everyday Struggle B,” along with their collaboration “Hypnotize,” are woven in as a complement to Mahler’s spiritual vision.
Richmond’s own Marcus Tenney and the other soloists are a big part of the equation.
“They are the front lines of communication here,” Hackman says. “I will come out and give a little preamble, but [when conducting] my back is to the audience, [which] will be looking at them the whole time. It is so rewarding to bring such talented, multidisciplinary artists to this setting and to see how much the symphony players respect them. It only works because of them, and the rest of the orchestra, of course. But that is a little more obvious.”
The performances should attract an eclectic crowd.
“The audience is a beautiful mix, and that has been the intent from the beginning. There were more people than I expected coming from the classical side who were simply curious. Of course, it is incredibly fulfilling to get a message on social media from someone who had come because of the popular artist, was blown away by the performance, and now are interested in what else might be out there in the symphonic world. The same is true when I hear an 85-year-old, who has been a subscriber to the orchestra for 40 years, say ‘I have been waiting for something new. I never heard of Tupac Shakur or Biggie Smalls. Now, I am going to go listen to them.’”
Ideally, the two-way inspiration will spark a kindling of interest for pop fans in the great works of Eurocentric classics, in addition to the recognition of the impassioned value of fundamentally Black and urban hip hop. As Hackman does, they may set their playlists to include each other. “Mixtape” is not just the title of the piece. It is the objective.
The Richmond Symphony Pops performs the Resurrection Mixtape, conducted by Steve Hackman, at the Dominion Energy Center’s Carpenter Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $36.00-66.00.
