Yo-Yo Ma and Andrew Bird

Music is constantly taking new steps and new risks. In the more recent generations artists have been taking further steps in combining different worlds of music. Gym Class Heroes hit mainstream consisting of guitar-based hip-hop, while The Roots have been holding strong with Tuba Gooding Jr. rocking out on his sousaphone while band member Black Thought rips marathon-long soul-blasting raps. Rap is definitely not the only genre being played with - just look at Anathallo or Tilly and the Wall, using hand claps and foot stomps predominantly as their percussion beats amidst their melodramatic folk voices and lyrics.

Now, again, further steps in combining worlds through music have been taken. This past Monday, October 27, Chicago's Andrew Bird, violist and whistler of indie rock, performed with Yo-Yo Ma, the globally renowned, child prodigy, Grammy Award winning cellist. MTV Iggy, a newer sector of MTV featuring more global underground artists, posted this video with a very minor explanation. Where and when did these two artists meet? All that we know so far is the two artists decided to improvise for a bit for MTV, and it ended up on Iggy.



Yo-Yo Ma begins playing and instructs Bird to jump in whenever he wants. Ma also ends with a very endearing approval of Bird's contribution, as if teacher to student. The fact that this clip appears to show Ma in a teaching standpoint with Bird as the student is proof alone that all artists can improve themselves. As amrit at Stereogum writes, Bird probably doesn't mind Ma's tone, since it is Yo-Yo Ma.

Check out one of my favorite Andrew Bird live performance Youtube videos for more insight into Bird's world of unique rock: