Shakori Hills unites music with nature

What do zydeco, koras and gypsy violins have in common? They're all being featured at Shakori Hills.

For seven years, Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance has been a touchstone for Triangle music, which its artists say is alive and well.

"There's absolutely a scene," said Pierce Freelon, MC for local Durham band The Beast. "There's a multi-generational scene. An international scene."

The spring edition of the biannual festival-located in Silk Hope, N.C., about an hour outside of Durham-is taking place from April 16 to 19. The Beast is just one of Shakori Hills' 61 scheduled performers; others include the orchestral folk of Lost in the Trees, the traditional Malian music of Mamadou Diabate and a variety of other local and out-of-town acts.

The Beast channels a fusion of jazz and rock into their intelligent hip-hop. The closest comparison might be The Roots, though they draw from a diverse pool of influences that makes the group difficult to pidgeonhole. Freelon is the son of Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon, and drummer Stephen Coffman grew up listening to both grunge and funk.

The only logical classification is "quality music," and in this genre they will find themselves in good company at Shakori Hills. Apart from the musical acts, the Festival attracts a hodgepodge of craftsmen, vendors and protestors.

"This is our third year playing Shakori," Coffman said. "At first we just thought of it as a bluegrass concert and didn't expect to see the big stages and great sound systems. We started out playing on Thursday, but moved to Friday last year, which was really cool. We played to a crowd of several thousand."

Quality music and stylistic diversity seem to be the unifying themes for Shakori, which will also feature art, crafts and a series of educational music workshops. Members of The Beast will teach "an interactive history lesson on bluegrass, jazz and hip-hop" for children on Saturday, with an adult version following on Sunday.