Feature Story
Hip-hop Meets Opera?
Hip-hop Meets Opera?
I Had To Do It
How I became obsessed with turning the music of Gilbert and Sullivan into pop songs
For years, I’ve been writing a musical—partly inspired by songs I hated.
These songs, which sound a lot like opera, were written in the late 1800s by two very British guys: the lyricist W.S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan.
It all began when I was a kid, and my dad was determined to dominate the music we heard at home. He’d blast his Gilbert and Sullivan albums in our living room, or out on the porch. By the time I reached junior high, when I was feeling a whole lotta love for Led Zeppelin II, I couldn’t stand Gilbert and Sullivan. To me, their music sounded outdated, pretentious, grating.
