Royce Martin - Swagtime
Schedule
Sat, 25 Jul, 2026 at 07:30 pm
UTC-05:00Location
364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, MO, United States, Missouri 63108 | St. Louis, MO
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SwagtimeRoyce Martin returns to Blue Strawberry to present a new genre of music he calls Swagtime. Blending the athletic, striding groove of his left hand with intricate melodic exploration in his right, we find Royce rapping over and around ragtime and jazz. It's a ragtime-jazz-hip hop orchestra conducted by Royce at the piano. It’s Scott Joplin, Charlie Parker, Metro Boomin and Smino all rowing one boat.
Swagtime looks to reclaim a Black, St. Louis music tradition. In the early 20th century, St. Louis was the epicenter of ragtime. Royce looks to recharge and remake ragtime, overlaying it with a witty, poetic rap lyricism. He wants to create a new place for this St. Louis sound at the forefront of musical innovation, and aims to return the virtuoso performer to popular music, and no less to return a foundational genre of American music to popular acclaim. This concert wants to be seminal.
Royce Martin is a pianist and composer from St. Louis, who taught himself piano at age 14 on a small keyboard. By 18, he was the in-house pianist at Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, the former home of the “King of Ragtime.” He returned there between semesters while in college and recorded his debut album Memories on Morgan Street: Scott Joplin Reimagined in 2023.? In 2024, John McWhorter of The New York Times described his pianism as “sly, relatable, and brilliant.”
Royce studied Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music and has since composed original scores for platforms including HBO and Hulu. He continues to push musical boundaries through Swagtime, a new genre he pioneered that fuses ragtime stride, bebop, and poetic rap into a new form of storytelling.
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Where is it happening?
364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, MO, United States, Missouri 63108Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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