Buck 65 Gets Nostalgic In Halifax With The Nova Scotia Symphony

Buck 65 once had to climb a tree in his yard with a transistor radio in hand to hear rap music on Dalhousie University's campus radio station CKDU's 33-watt signal. Much has changed since the mid-'80s. CKDU currently operates at 3,200 watts — serving the entire urban Halifax regional — and this past weekend Buck 65 returned to that campus as the guest soloist with the Nova Scotia Symphony.

Decked out in a well-tailored suit, the Mount Uniacke, N.S. native was all nerves with an entire orchestra seated behind him. He even admitted mid-set that this night might cause him to lose a few good years off his life. He paused every so often to wipe his brow with his jacket's sleeve.

He shouldn't have worried, though. Buck 65 was at the top of his game. He even said so, with a definitive, "This is it, this is all there is." He was talking about the unlikely blurring of boundaries between classical and rap. He carved through a set list including "Surrender To Strangeness," "Roses And Bluejays," "Cries A Girl," "Feels Like" and "Three Pieces In Old Style," which he set to Henryk Gorecki's 1963 work of the same name. He also performed three solo pieces. Even Dinuk Wijeratne, director/composer of the Nova Scotia symphony, seemed perplexed by the collaboration.

"This is the very first time we've had a laptop being performed with the symphony," he said. Wijeratne quickly followed his observation by saying he noticed Buck 65 checking his Gmail during rehearsal.

Buck 65 returned after the intermission with his suit-jacket unbuttoned and without his black tie and took a more familiar stance. While the sweeping stringed instruments artfully moved back and forth behind him, Buck 65 nailed the improvisational nature of the Maritime Pops Series. Season ticket holders — mostly poodle-haired parents and grandparents — and local musical misfits who scrounged up enough cash were spotted tapping their toes.

The evening's most noteworthy performance came when Wijeratne, the unabashedly adorable and enthusiastic resident conductor, introduced his original "Hymnpeace (Remix)" composition and asked Buck 65 to perform a quote from 19th century poet Matthew Arnold's famous "Dover Beach" over top. The gruff delivery of the poem's lines "Ah, love, let us be true/To one another!" were solid gold. Taking a more political turn, the poem closed with "And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused arms of struggle and flight/Where ignorant armies clash by night." Wijeratne wrote the related musical piece during his days as a student in New York at the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003.

But more than political statements, this night was about Buck 65 homecoming. He even thanked his Grade 7 music teacher for getting him into music. Something tells me even the academic elite like his old university professors would have been proud of him on this particular evening.