By age 4, Charles Wilson III was already learning how to play the piano. The Detroit native grew up studying classical music and later developed a love for hip-hop. Today, Wilson is also known by his stage name — BLKBOK — and has fused the two genres. His sophomore album is called 9, named after the Little Rock Nine, who desegregated their white school in 1957.
Wilson tells KCRW that his mom taught him and his sister discipline through classical music. They took lessons each Saturday, and did recitals and competitions.
“My mom had this rule: If you don't practice, you don't eat. So I tended to like eating, so I practiced a lot. But practice schedules were just every day or every two days, a half hour, hour, maybe two hours sometimes — just depending on what I needed to accomplish in my daily lessons before I'd have to see my teacher on Saturday.”
He admits that he quit “a million times,” but his mom said he could only quit at age 18, when he was an adult who could do anything he wanted.
Wilson says the genre slowly grew on him, but he was quickly hooked on the act of performing onstage for people.
Then at age 14 or 15, he fell in love with music. “It just became the love of my life. And I couldn't imagine myself doing anything other than music.”
When writing music, Wilson starts on the piano, hits the record button on his computer, and noodles around until he finds inspiration.
“I create my pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. You know how you start with the edge pieces, and then if there's a face, you create the face, and then you fill in the body? That's exactly the same way I create music, from the outside in, or as it comes together.”
He adds, “The music creates itself. We're just the vessels. The idea is just to be there for the journey. … I'm the writer that loves to write. There's no destination in any of it. I just like to sit down and express what comes to me.”
Wilson pays tribute to the Little Rock Nine on 9 because of the “togetherness and love and unity” that they represent in American history.