If you could interview one group of street performers, who would it be?
The struggling artist looking for a break? How about the foreign-born musician just getting by? Or that painter up the street who sells the $400 prints?
For me, I’d have no hesitation answering that question: Acapella Soul. New York born and bred (one of them was born in Philly), the members of this group all started singing for singing’s sake. And they got good. Soon, performing for dough on the sidewalks became not just a living but a way of living, and a successful one, too. Man, I love these guys. I see them almost every day on the steps of the MET, joking around, no matter how hot it is. So it’s with some measure of glee I felt when sitting down to interview them on August 4th, 2010.
I made the above video for Undercover New York, a website about street performers in Manhattan. I used to ride by bike around, find a show and film it, before posting it online with the contact details of the street performers in question. If the videos got popular, the buskers would get business.
Once The Busking Project kicked off, I realised I’d need experience interviewing buskers. So I asked these guys for a sit down after their show. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and maybe next time I’ll film them without a massive truck crushing construction garbage in the background.
