I’m a crossover singer.
This is what I say when they often ask me: “what kind of musical training did you have”?
This answer almost seems like an anathema not to be pronounced because it is difficult to understand.
Something unknown that “would have little appeal to the public”.
So let’s ask ourselves what “crossover” is.
The word crossover literally means “intersection”.
In music, therefore, it describes a genre that borrows characteristics of different, more structured and well-known genres, to create an intersection, precisely as a new fusion “attractive for wider audiences”.
In theory.
Imagine, for example, classical music compositions which, when used in pop music, sometimes become successful for those who… listen to pop music.
It’s not that rare.
Think Frank Zappa already in the 70s.
Some crossover fusions now have an identifying name such as baroque pop (instrumental classical music and rock) or classical crossover (opera and pop music).
And so the crossover rock (fusion of heavy metal with hip hop funk, punk rock or alternative rock) or the crossover trash (hardcore punk, former evolution of punk rock, fused with trash metal, derived from classic heavy metal).
What if I told you about rap rock, rap metal, rapcore? Could you see the intersections?
Oh yes, there is also funk inside.
Another name above all to get an idea?: Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I remember years and years, in the late 90’s and beyond, listening to live Fusion concerts.
I finally stopped feeling like a strange beast.
Jazz fusion, celtic fusion, that was “crossover”. It even embraced my love for Celtic music.
If we separate the word “cross over”, we would think “go through”.
This is crossover to me.
Going through languages and styles that I’ve always loved without ever stopping at just one.
Breathing in it.
Soul makes my soul speak.
Blues makes it vibrate and heals my wounds.
Rock screams when they’re too big.
Pop makes my soul understandable.
Jazz opens up my mind and my heart and brings me back to it when I get lost.
Gospel makes my soul celebrated.
Spiritual makes it hoping and remembering.
Celtic music makes it light.
Indian music makes it fly.
I’m a Crossover Singer.
They tell me not to say it because it is not understandable and because “niches reach only a few”.
For a lifetime, I’ve been asked to choose only one genre of music.
But this is the challenge:
I want to make sure that this “intersection”, strange and Unique, this fusion and this passing through, does not reach your mind because we need categories and names.
I don’t want crossover to be attractive to wider audiences.
I want it to reach everyone’s soul.
May it come to you.
