Most people have heard about the acapella group Pentatonix, which grew to fame on NBC’s singing competition, The Sing-Off, where they won a recording contract with Sony Music along with $200,000. Although they were dropped by their label, the group formed their own YouTube channel to great success. The group has 8 million subscribers and more than 950 million views, and the PTXofficial YouTube page is currently the 12th most subscribed-to music channel and the 39th most subscribed channel overall.
Two members, Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi, have branched off and also have their own comedic YouTube web show, Superfruit, with over 1 million subscribers and over 86 million views. The duo often performs and interprets popular music as well as documents their lives and will include other guests as well. Some of the most popular viewings have included a medley of Beyonce’s self-titled album, a performance of “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked, a “Pop Goes Broadway” medley, and a medley of Taylor Swift’s album, 1989.
Most recently, one of their videos has gone viral. A few days ago, Superfruit took hip-hop songs and reinterpreted them as Broadway show tunes. The result is often funny, yet still manages to showcase their vocal talents perfectly; but what is most striking to the viewer is how these songs have lilting melodies that are nearly undetected underneath the driving bass and studio production.
The video opens with Jay-Z’s “99 Problems”, and continues with songs like Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It on the Alcohol” and a Les Miserables’ styling of Rihanna’s new song, “B‒tch Better Have My Money.” The standouts are Drake’s “Hold On We’re Going Home” and Nicki Minaji’s, “Anaconda.” Once you hear these renditions, it will be challenging to hear the originals and not automatically visualize them being sung on stage with dramatic lighting, staging, costumes, and orchestral accompaniment.
The power went clean out in most of Manhattan on Saturday night. The Broadway League released a statement saying most of the shows were canceled and that the power should be restored before the following Sunday matinee. That did end up happening but right after the blackout happened casts of Broadway shows took to the streets to offer up their voices in song to the delight of the many people in the streets who were evacuated from the Broadway houses and neighboring establishments.
Take a look at what shows popped off in the streets of midtown Manhattan!
Of course, Tony Award Winner André De Shields snaps off with the cast of Hadestown at the Walter Kerr Theatre
2. The cast of Aint Too Proud singing Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” to someone in the crowd from their dressing room windows at the Imperial Theatre. The tweet with the video it’s the cast of Hamilton but twitter did its thing and they quickly corrected them. It was an honest mistake, Hamilton is right next door.)
As described in their mission statement, Los York is “an integrated production company that executes live action, design, and experimental projects.” An older project of the company resurfaced recently, a reimagined rendition of West Side Story‘s “Cool” scene, is now circulating throughout the internet. The Emmy Award winner and director of the video, Seth Epstein has brilliantly captured the story of rivalry within two different ethnic groups, but this time with more melanin!
The video also features music by Jimek (Run the World Dave Aude Club Remix), and choreography by Keone and Mari Madrid (SYTYCD).
The electrifying footwork, where pirouettes are replaced with pop locking and break dancing in the place of battements, provides hope for bridging racial gaps and relieving tensions. This style is more interpretive, with urban based movements that add an extra layer to some of the barriers printed in the original 1957 production.One thing that I appreciate about the classic musical West Side Story is its transcendent nature and ability to comfortably conform to whatever generation of interest.
Above all else, West Side Story is a love story, a modernized interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The timelessness in the modernized story–tension between two lovers of opposite gangs–reveals past and present issues found in American society however old and reoccurring they may be. The Los York video demonstrates that flexibility and once again creates an even bigger space for a fabulous classic.