Gangsta’s Paradise: by Coolio

Keyboardist: Gail Nobles

Today’s topic, Karen Briggs.

In the beginning, I saw a video clip of a woman playing the violin at Xen Lounge and asked, “Who is this woman playing the violin? She’s playing Gangsta’s Paradise any way she wants to. I mean, she could make the violin sound almost like a guitar. I was stunned. Everything you heard of the original rap song and then some as far as music. I said, “Wow!” With the violin, she was adding more to the music as if it were her own. Her name is Karen Briggs.

In the beginning, after watching her perform at Xen Lounge, her name was not known to me. I thought, “I got to find out who that woman is.” I saw the video about seven years ago, and today I just found out what her name is. How did I find out? I just typed in Google Search engine “ female violin player plays Gansta’s Paradise”. I went to Google Images to see if I could recognize her face, and I did.

Xen Lounge is said to be closed now, but there was so much talent in that place. So much that I’m just beginning to find out more about the people I’ve seen perform there. Karen Briggs is one of those people. I was blown away about how she played Gangsta’s Paradise by the rapper Coolio. So blown away, I had to find out more about Karen.

She was born in Manhattan to a family of musicians, Karen Briggs took up the violin at age 12 and committed to playing professionally at age 15. Briggs joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra while still in college, but grew discontented with performing classical music and left the orchestra after four years. Since then, she has performed predominantly in the jazz and contemporary instrumental genres.

When I first heard Karen Briggs play the violin, I thought, “She plays like a professional”, not knowing she had experience.

When I decided to do a podcast about Karen, I wanted to play a little intro and give an example of how Karen plays the violin. I have the violin in keyboard, but I don’t have the bow to give the sound effect that a violinist has when drawing a bow across the strings. Like I said before, Karen played Gangsta’s Paradise as if the music was her own. I tried to give an example of that by adding something more to the music. I had to create a number of tracks to make up my sound. It was very challenging. I had to listen to the instruments that were played in order to play the music, Gangsta’s Paradise. Then I was able to add a little more of my own tune to the music.

Karen Briggs is an extraordinary violinist. If you haven’t heard Karen, you’ve got to hear her for yourself on YouTube.com. I’m Gail Nobles & you’re listening to Lounge Hype.Thank you for listening.