At the April 14 Ring Festival LA kick-off, daKAH’s Double G and his 9Net got the party started. On June 19, the full 60-piece daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra will be performing at California Plaza, bringing Double G’s Gangsta Wagner, a commissioned work by Grand Performances, to the stage. A year in the making, Double G has been in the studio composing his own take on Wagner’s Ring.

Over the last 24 years, Grand Performances has undertaken several commissions, and this season they will present three commissions: Gangsta Wagner; a musical work by George Sarah; and a work by puppeteer Paul Zaloom. According to Michael Alexander, Grand Performances Executive Director, “We’ve been pleased to have been an early advocate for daKAH, helping raise the profile of the orchestra. In 2009, when Ring Festival LA approached us about a partnership, it was natural step for us to continue nurturing this important artistic relationship with this commission.” He continued, “We are proud that Grand Performances will present this envelope pushing work by one of the most challenging and adventurous artists in LA.”

According to Double G, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, “I knew a lot about a lot of composers, but my Wagner knowledge was limited to the Tristan chord, Bugs Bunny and Apocalypse Now. When I received the commission I began watching the Ring incessantly and reading the opera scores. I prejudged Wagner by his politics and anti-Semitism, but as I studied and numbered every measure of the Ring score I grew to respect his brilliance as a musician, in fact, the harmonic structure for this piece came directly from Wagner.” He continued, “With Gangsta Wagner I hoped to create something that would respect the operas and hip hop, in such away that the well-informed snobs on opposite sides of the spectrum would find the music satisfying and challenging; smashing the two musical genres into a 2010 LA sound.”

Double G continued, “Keying off the Nazi army’s appropriation of Wagner’s music, I worked to convey the agitation activated by the music, taking that agitation into the early 90’s LA street scene of screeching tires and rap music and mashing them into a sound that is reflective of LA today. The Romantic structure of Wagner’s music provided a musical challenge, nevertheless, not unlike the 19^th-century composer, I was up at 3 am today notating my score by hand before it went out for copying; rehearsals start tomorrow.”