Words by Ammar Kalia

Composer and producer 4stringsz has had an innate connection with the violin for as long as he can remember. “The first time I picked one up is one of my earliest memories,” he says. “I was four years old and we had a program at school where we could choose an instrument to take lessons on. There was something about the violin that drew me in. I liked the smell of the wood and the way it felt in my hands – I just took to it.”

Almost 25 years since that first encounter, 4stringsz has built a unique career bridging the gap between disparate genres, all through the virtuosity of his playing. Toting his S-shaped electric violin, 4stringsz has brought the harmonic warmth of orchestral accompaniment to the likes of UK rap royalty Kano, Dave, Headie One and AJ Tracey on international stages as varied as the Brit Awards, Glastonbury and BBC Radio One, while his own production work has spawned underground hits such as rapper Sam Wise’s 2017 track Lizzie.

 “Creative independence is my personality,” 4stringsz says with a smile over a video call from his home in South London. “It's a responsibility to be in possession of a skill that can make people so moved to be either happy or sad or reflective. Sometimes I close my eyes while I'm playing and I don't even feel like it's me, I'm just a vessel for something greater.”

Even though that initial connection with the violin was a powerful one, it took a number of years before 4stringsz committed to a life of music-making and foregrounding his instrument. In fact, it seems he lived through several lives before finding his current moniker and self-assured public persona. 

“I was always known as a sports guy – when I was 15 I was number one in England for the triple jump,” he enthuses. “I’ve had an up and down relationship with the violin because it is one of those instruments where it takes years for it to not sound like a cat being dragged through the bushes and that's probably why most people end up quitting. Once you're able to get that beautiful tone, it can be addictive to play but it was first and foremost a school activity for me growing up.”

Initially taking lessons throughout his early adolescence, it was during those later years of sporting prowess that 4stringsz increasingly put his instrument aside. After a period of trouble when he was 16, which led him to be expelled from school, it seemed music was the last avenue available to him. “I knew I had to focus on my studies, to get back on track. It took up all my time,” he says. “By the time I was about 17, I hadn’t played for a year and a half. Yet, music is a motor skill that you don't forget, especially when you start so young like me.”

Its pull persisted. “One day, I just picked the violin up and started playing again out of boredom. I began to film myself making covers of all the tunes I was listening to, like Drake’s music, and the process would allow me to tune out from the real world,” he says. “I would do this for hours on end; it was like therapy.”

The positivity of practice had a knock-on effect on his studies and within the year, 4stringsz found himself studying Marketing at Leeds University. The newfound independence and partying prevalence of university life however once again led him to spend months without touching the violin while it gathered dust under his bed. 

“I knew it was there – I was just resisting it for some reason,” he says. “One day during my second year, I got it out during a spell of boredom and began playing again. Just like that, I was back - and I decided to start writing music to accompany what I was playing because I didn't want to only make covers anymore.” The shift was permanent this time. 4stringsz set out to teach himself the basics of music production and within a few months, he was spending most of his days holed up in his room making beats and recording melodies on his violin.

“When I’m into something, I’m pretty much a horse with blinders on – I can’t focus on anything else,” he says. “Towards the end of my second year at university, I would be in my room on Fruity Loops, making tunes all day while my flatmates thought I was studying. Deep down I knew I was never cut out for the corporate lifestyle university was trying to get me into, so I decided to drop out.”

Following a conversation with his mother, 4stringsz transferred to the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford and began honing his craft as a professional musician. He came up with his new name – a combination of the fact that the violin has four strings, the age he began playing, and the number of violins he owns – and within just a few years, he was onstage with soul singer Etta Bond, performing to a packed crowd of 1,500 people at north London’s Koko. “I first came onto Etta’s radar by remixing her 2018 track “Surface” on social media. She loved it and I ended up getting invited to tour,” he says. “I’d never performed to that many people at Koko before. Something just took over me and I didn't even know it was possible for the crowd to go that crazy for the violin – the connection that I had with them is something I've never felt before. It's been hard ever since to recreate the power of that first time.”

Just as Etta Bond was drawn to 4stringsz amid the noise of social media, it feels as if key moments of his career have equally been the result of coincidence or predestination, as much as talent and tenacity. Around the same time as his Koko show, for instance, 4stringsz travelled to Brussels to watch guitarist Tom Misch headline. “I’ve always loved his music and it was great to see a violinist onstage with him. I was watching and wondering, could I do this too?” he says. “I ended up having an out-of-body experience, envisioning myself right there on the stage. Two years later, I happened to meet Tom’s tour manager and she said she would let him know I was available for shows. Within a couple of weeks, I got a message from Tom, asking if I could play with them in Cornwall. It ended up being a magical set, during sunset on the beach. While I was there, I realised that someone must be looking out for me because I can’t explain how I’d come from watching this show to now being in it.”

Spanning the worlds of pop, rap, jazz and classical, 4stringsz is uniquely placed as an instrumentalist in the UK musical landscape. He is also an outlier by virtue of his race. “Growing up, I never saw anyone who looked like me doing what I was doing, so I didn’t know if it would be possible,” he says. “Things are changing now with the likes of [cellist] Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing Harry and Meghan’s wedding, but we still need to challenge the stigma that this is just a classical instrument for certain people.” 

Indeed, the numbers of people of colour in British orchestras are currently so low, that there is no accurate data to measure their rates of inclusion. I ask whether that lack of representation was something that slowed 4stringsz’s own path to becoming a full-time violinist. “It was never cool to be a violinist when I was younger,” he says. “I would have to skip football with the boys to go to orchestra. No one teased me for continuing to play because I would own it, but I was lucky. Part of the reason I'm now here is to break that stigma. I walk into the studio with gangsta rappers and when I bring out the violin, the look on people's faces can be fascinating. That's just because they've never seen someone like me play one before, so there needs to be more of us coming through.”

This ethos of representation and inclusion is one 4stringsz hopes to continue with his varied slate of new projects. He is preparing to write and record his first full-length record for Apple Music, which he describes as a mix of “film score and album”, alongside a range of vocalists, and he is currently working on curating a VST for Spitfire Audio.

“It’s been a dream of mine for a while now to create something that leaves my mark on the violin,” he says. “We’re adding so many sounds you wouldn’t expect from the instrument. There are healing frequencies in this music – vibrations that will make your body feel different ways – and it all helps to make productions feel 4D.”

Moving seamlessly from cinematic soundscapes to vibrational frequencies, it seems 4stringsz is only just getting started with harnessing the power of his instrument. “I trust myself that my journey forward will be just as exciting and unpredictable as it has been before,” he says. “I listen to my violin because it speaks to me. It’s the thing that will dictate where I'm at and where I should go next.”