In February 2022, the Baltimore Boom Bap Society joined our Le Mondo artist-family! You can experience the Baltimore Boom Bap Society's live music event every Last Friday of the month at our art space in downtown Baltimore.
Meet BBBS
The Baltimore Boom Bap Society is a collaboration between producers Erik Spangler (DJ Dubble8) and Wendel Patrick.
Their monthly improvised hip hop series is conceived as a forum for experimentation and collaboration between local hip hop artists, while placing hip hop in dialogue with other forms of music.
Wendel Patrick & DJ Dubble8 invite special guests from Baltimore and beyond to perform with them in diverse combinations and explore a hybrid of free improvisation and beat-based composition.
This much-lauded series ran from 2011-2019 at the beloved and now-shuttered Windup Space. After a two year hiatus, we are so excited to give them a new performance home for experimentation, collaboration and community-building.
Each month, BBBS curates a night of music sets led by a line-up of invited emcees. The night is closed out by an open cypher which invites guests of the performance to get on stage and musically improvise with invited performers as well.
ABOUT WENDEL PATRICK
Wendel Patrick has been referred to as “David Foster Wallace reincarnated as a sound engineer” by Urbanite Magazine and as “wildly talented” by the Baltimore Sun. He has been referred to by XLR8R magazine as “a hip-hop producer that could easily make any fan of Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, or Madlib flip out.” The alter-ego of classical and jazz pianist Kevin Gift, Wendel Patrick has made a name for himself internationally as a music producer of remarkable vision, skill and talent. His five albums: Sound, Forthcoming, JDWP, Passage, and Travel were all produced without the use of sampling, with Patrick playing every note of every instrument. What is perhaps most astounding and perplexing to listeners is that there are actually no instruments…he crafts all of the instruments, and plays every note, electronically.
Equally at home performing on stage with his band, behind two turntables, beatboxing, improvising, or playing a Mozart Concerto on stage with orchestra, Wendel Patrick has toured Europe on several occasions and performed throughout the world with renowned spoken word artist and poet Ursula Rucker (The Roots, 4 Hero).
In 2011, Wendel Patrick co-founded the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, with Erik Spangler (DJ Dubble8) that performs monthly improvised hip hop shows with hand picked musicians and emcees. The group’s collaborative performance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra of Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale was named “Best Mesmerizing Performance of 2016” by Baltimore Magazine. Recent performances included a new collaboration between the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, on which Patrick’s orchestral compositions were performed. An avid photographer and videographer, his photography has been exhibited in several art galleries including the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Ralph Arnold Gallery in Chicago. Patrick shoots all of the accompanying documentary photography and videography for Out of the Blocks .
Wendel Patrick/Kevin Gift majored in both music and political science at Emory University and earned his M.M. in Piano Performance as a scholarship student at the Northwestern University School of Music in Evanston Illinois. Patrick is a winner of the 2015 Baker Artist Awards’ Mary Sawyers Baker grand prize and was a member of the faculty at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland from 2001 to 2013 teaching piano, introduction to music theory, music history and electronic music production. He has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art and at Loyola University Chicago where he was Department of Fine and Performing Arts Guest Artist-in-Residence for 2019.
Wendel Patrick is currently a professor at The Peabody Music Conservatory - Johns Hopkins University where he teaches “Hip Hop Music Production: History and Practice”, the first course of its kind to be taught at a major traditional music conservatory anywhere in the United States. He has recently been named as the new host of the “Artworks” television program on Maryland Public Television/PBS.
ABOUT ERIK SPANGLER
Erik Spangler (DJ Dubble8) is a composer and electronic musician living in Baltimore, Maryland. Engaged equally with ensemble improvisation, live electronics, studio production, and notated chamber music, Spangler aims to dissolve cultural boundaries while drawing all corners of inspiration into evocative soundscapes. His compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally by ensembles including the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Rhymes With Opera, and International Contemporary Ensemble.
Performances as a turntablist/electronic musician include collaborations with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra, American University Jazz Workshop, and Cornell Symphony Orchestra. Founder of The Vigil all-night music festival at MICA (2010-present), he is also co-founder of Mobtown Modern music series (2008-12) and the Baltimore Boom Bap Society (2011-present) live improvised hip hop collective/music series. His multimedia collaboration with old-time music duo Anna & Elizabeth, From The Mountains: Hazel Dickens In Baltimore, received a New Music USA project grant in 2014. Spangler holds degrees from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (B.M., Music Composition) and Harvard University (Ph.D., Music Composition).
He has taught sound art, music production, live electronic music, and composition at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Towson University, Ithaca College, and K-12 schools in Baltimore, with additional work as an accompanist (performing on MPC sampler and Ableton Push) for modern dance classes at Towson University and Goucher College.