Symphonic Beats celebrates women, proves Kalamazoo’s hip hop culture is thriving

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Curtain Call — your front-row seat to the unique, lively, and memorable performances shaping Kalamazoo’s arts scene. Supported by the I.S. Gilmore Foundation, this series highlights the creativity and community that make each show something special. All photos were taken by Fran Dwight.

KALAMAZOO, MI — Poetry and rap, cyphers and dance squads, composed music and hip hop turntablism, women and community. It was a lot to put on the stage at Kalamazoo Central Friday night.

But the huge community on stage, and the crowd that came out to see the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra’s second “Symphonic Beats,” prove there is a thriving hip hop culture in Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan.

“There are so many artists, especially Black artists, in Kalamazoo, that have big voices, a lot of words to say and to contribute, and do so every day,” Dr. Candace “DC” Lavender tells me before the show. 

We spoke to her and KSO Music Director Julian Kuerti about how the beats and the symphony can fit together, and if Kalamazoo’s hip hop culture needs a bit more spotlight.

Is there hip hop in Kalamazoo? 

Of course there is, Lavender says. 

“I just encourage the folks to look beyond the mainstream and find the voices of those that are empowering one another,” she says.

“Get Ur Freak On”

These “Symphonic Beats” were about “Celebrating Women in Hip Hop Culture.” 

Opening the evening was Monica Washington Padula with lush classical piano that then took a turn into what could be a touch dissonant 20th-century modern composition, then a staccato minimalist repetition — oh, hey, that’s the core sample of Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On.” 

Jessica Ivey, classically trained vocalist and R&B, gospel, and melodic hip hop singer, at rehearsal. Photo: Fran Dwight

The first quarter of the concert set the tone of symphony-meets-beats. Classically-trained, current R&B/gospel/hip hop vocalist Jessica Ivey stunned the crowd with a purely classical “Ave Maria.” Conductor Kuerti led the KSO players into Motown studio orchestra mode — though it was Motown as sampled on a hip hop record. Giving extra umph were the drum set, electric piano and electric strings of the DC Quintet.

Dr. Michelle Johnson of the Institute of Public Scholarship gave readings and recordings on the history of Black struggle and women’s struggle between pieces. DJ Venus FlyyTrap spun and mixed. Rap and poetry took women’s journey from birth to childhood, rebellion to rebirth.

Poet Denise Miller recited the history of her female ancestors, “speakeasy women” and “speak-easy women,” a “long line of life-ain’t-easy women.” 

Dr. Candy McCorkle-Boughton, in her “Unapologetically BLACK” shirt, recited “What if I Am a Black Woman?” “What if I am a Black woman? Is it a disease? Well, if it is, I sure hope it’s catching, ’cause they need to pour it in a bottle, label it, and sprinkle it all over the people; men, women, whoever have loved, cried, worked, or died for one of us.”

“Ain’t I a Woman?” DC Lavender rapped, launching from that perfectly musical place name of “Kalamazoo…  Let’s celebrate women, the ones whose flowers are due. We stand in power, not looking like what we’ve been through. Maybe if I soften it a little more, it might make you feel more comfortable, considering the societal boxes that…” and proceeds into a high-speed torrent of words that I couldn’t write down fast enough. 

Then came the dance squad of the Trinity Prep Center, youth from tiny to teens, who were pure energy. There are struggles big and small, but like the girl up front with the glasses that were about to fly off her face as she thrashed with perfect timing to the group, sometimes a girl just has to calmly deal with it, put those glasses in her pocket, and keep thrashin’. 

All bring their own ingredients

And that was just the first half.

For the second half, there was the freeform cypher — not really a rap “battle,” but ladies passing the mic, giving their words, and passing the mic to the next, more as supportive egos than competing egos. 

We got the powerful R&B, gospel-tinged vocals of Yolonda Lavender. We got sorority sisters dancing. We got all the ladies out to another tribute to Missy Elliot, “The Rain,” with umbrellas and a big inflatable suit. “I can’t stand the rain” fit in with the storms that earlier drenched the audience as they arrived.

Before the show, DC Lavender tells me that there were around 56 people involved, all from Kalamazoo or connected to the area.

“I think the recipe (for the show) is unique because every artist brings their own ingredient, and I’m not trying to create something based on my own ingredients or what I feel should be made,” she says. “We all bring our own ingredients; that is the recipe.”

All in the community are welcome to bring something to the stage, which is the attitude behind the recipe. That inclusiveness is the value held above any need to keep a singular artist’s vision, genre, or culture pure.

Maybe symphonic music in general has a reputation for keeping to a sort of purity, for preserving the old, keeping itself apart from any contemporary street-level musical expression?

“I’m not an expert (on hip hop),” Kuerti admits. But since the first Symphonic Beats collaboration in 2025, he’s gotten his hip hop education. And he’s learned to be loose, to be dirty, even.

“Hip hop is all about contamination, it’s all about what other thing can you bring in and throw in that wasn’t there before,” he says. “Turn it, maybe twist it, maybe stretch it or compress it, and make it fit.

“So it’s dirty. It’s not clean, you get your hands dirty, and you build something. But at the end, it’s beautiful what we got,” Kuerti says.

Cross-cultural contamination at its finest

As an educator, founder of The Teacher Cypher and Executive Director of RAWK, Read and Write Kalamazoo, Lavender was a presenter on a hip hop culture talk in February. There she talked to a “72-year-old white man, and he said two days prior to that event was the first time he ever listened to hip hop on purpose. And he loved it.”

It’s not impossible to get some cross-cultural contamination going, with everyone discovering something new to them.

Lavender wants more of this — to bring more people into the conversation. She says, “How dare we not take a day, a moment, a night to celebrate that cultural phenomenon that has that kind of impact on people?”

Kuerti says the first Symphonic Beats was “incredibly popular,” with both their traditional KSO subscribers and people who are more about the beats than the symphony.

The auditorium this time was packed with a mostly Black audience. They were cheering on the local performers. Some, like J’onni “Nana” Wilhite, a standout of the freeform rap cypher in the second half, seemed to have dedicated fans in the seats.

Is there an active hip hop community in Kalamazoo? Obviously, yes — but aside from events like this, where can we see it? I know Dabney and Co. will have hip hop nights, and…?

It probably wasn’t the first time an aging white guy asked her these questions, but Lavender patiently explained, “When I think hip hop in Kalamazoo, I think Bell’s Brewery, I think AZO Lounge. I think I even heard Old Dog is having a lot more hip hop shows. And shout out to Papa Pete’s, they’ve had hip hop in the past.” The Xperience, a Black-owned rental venue, where the Symphonic Beats after-party was held, often has events, she points out.

The hip hop culture is in Kalamazoo’s food, in the fashions, in “anything related to the cultures of folks that are often marginalized,” Lavender says.

Anti-division rebellion

Ok, that “Ave Maria” was by that old Franz Schubert, but the rest of Symphonic Beats felt very current. 

It’s always been rebellious, but hip hop, with honest words on what’s happening at the moment, feels more so, in this time of anti-DEI, this time of increased division.

Lavender says, “Oh, absolutely. And my parents will tell you, I’ve been a rebel since a youngin’. I’m a rule follower for sure, but when it comes to injustice, I’m gonna rebel every time, I’m gonna push back every time, and this is a peaceful pushback.” 

Symphonic Beats was all about bringing people together, a rebellion against division. 

Kuerti and the KSO come in with their community, the hip hop community comes in with their people, and “We put them in the same room,” she says.

“It’s very easy. Julian is badass. And I’m dope,” she says, both Lavender and Kuerti laughing. “We could have done a show, just the two of us, and it would have been great.

“But the fact that we’re bringing in so many other people… they bring their backgrounds, and their perspectives, and everyone has a voice — it’d be impossible to leave that space not connecting to a new culture, a new environment, a new idea,” Lavender says.