With the 200th Anniversary of the National Anthem looming, it’s good to know Baltimore has another way to modernize the song besides that hearty cheer for the Orioles that locals slip in on the second-to-last-line by shouting “O!”

On Sunday Sept. 14 at 5 p.m., renowned beat-box artist Shodekeh will be leading a remix of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum that fuses hip hop, beatbox and classical music.

Three musical groups convened by Shodekeh, representing the vocal arts, classical music, and hip hop, will come together for the performance of an interpretation the organizers promise will speak to “our ever-evolving country and the diversity of voices within it.”

“There’s a standard, default culture regarding the National Anthem, and I wanted to veer away from that and focus on a culturally alternative version of the song and its legacy,” Shodekeh says in a “Statement of Rebellion and Reconciliation” accompanying the museum’s announcement of the performance.

The collaborators Shodekeh will lead are: the Baltimore Boom Bap Society, a group that performs improvised hip hop; Embody, a group of vocal artists ranging from throat singers to opera lyricists; and Classical Revolution, a collection of classically-trained musicians who perform classical music in unexpected places.

Untold Stories, Unconventional Performers

Beginning at 5:30 pm, participants will walk from one site within the museum to the next to hear each group perform.

The performances are based on untold stories about the Star-Spangled Banner, including the fact that Frederick Douglass was a violinist in his free time and reportedly played the song.

Another story to be recognized is local jazz singer Ethel Ennis’ a capella performance of the anthem at President Nixon’s inauguration. “Her choice to sing unaccompanied was a first and was her way to de-politicize the song,” Shodekeh notes in the statement.

“It is my hope that these untold stories will unlock how people view the song, the flag and their relationship to the country,” he says.

In total, 15 untold stories will be referenced, in honor of the 15 stars in the original Star-Spangled Banner flag. The performance will crescendo as Embody, Classical Revolution, and the Baltimore Boom Bap Society unite for a finale performance in the museum theater.

O Say Can You See Something New?

The War of 1812, the Battle of Fort McHenry and the hard-to-sing anthem Francis Scott Key was inspired to write after watching it, have already generated some local non-traditional artistic works.

In 2012 there was OSAYCANYOUSEE, a series of prints and photographs by Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen. They asked viewers to go beyond the war’s rockets-red-glare iconography to consider its relationship with American expansionism and Manifest Destiny.

The next year there was “1814! The War of 1812 Rock Opera!”

“Imagine what you would have retained from the 7th grade about the routed resistance at Bladensburg, the burning of Washington, or the climactic bombardment of Fort McHenry if your teacher had delivered the lecture in skimpy costume, with screaming guitar riffs, in the persona of Cher, Gene Simmons or Frank-N-Furter?” we wrote after witnessing a performance at the Creative Alliance.

Over the years, a number of non-traditional interpretations of the Star-Spangled Banner have stirred controversy. The Jimi Hendrix version at Woodstock in 1969 is well known. An unconventional arrangement by Igor Stravinsky in 1944 brought him a warning by Boston Police that he could be subject to a $100 fine.

“The transformation of the Hendrix interpretation from shocking and condemned, to legendary and accepted, is almost as significant as the performance itself,” Shodekeh observes in the statement.

As Skipp Sanders, executive Director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum sees it, the upcoming Baltimore remix “connects our past present and future.”

“By looking at the history behind Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner, we are shedding light on the unheard voices that make up of the fabric of our nation,” he said.

“This performance speaks to the future, as well. There’s still a lot of racial healing to do in this country, as we have recently seen in the news. However, regardless of our backgrounds, we’re all Americans.”