Klassik has been thinking about the American songbook a lot lately. Last year the Milwaukee rapper/singer/producer was invited to perform a reinterpretation of the Woody Guthrie standard "This Land is Your Land" for their Rashid Johnson feature exhibit “Hail We Now Sing Joy.” That year he reprised the song at Johanna Rose's "Guthrie Uncovered" concert at Turner Hall Ballroom, where he also performed Guthrie's "Ship in the Sky" with Rose," and he performed "Amazing Grace" for Milwaukee Record's Public Domain series.
As the rapper tells it, those performances inspired him to curate an evening of re-interpretation in honor of his late father, Robin Abston, which he presented as a private concert last winter. And now the public will have a chance to see those reinterpretations as well.
On Friday, Nov. 16, Klassik will be joined at Cactus Club by Rose's folk duo Nickel&Rose and the string duo SistaStrings for a live recording of American Klassiks. The night will begin with sets from each of those duos before all five artists perform their recorded set together. Klassik plans to release the album before the end of the year.
The show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $12 in advance, of $15 day of show. For a sense of what you're in store for, you can watch a video of Klassik and Rose performing "Ship in the Sky" at the Chair Company below.
