Abdominal and The Obliques rap with seniors at Holy Blossom Temple

These aren't your average grannies!

Last month, Toronto rapper Abdominal (also known as Andy Bernstein) and his band The Obliques performed with a seniors’ group from Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto for the first time and proved that you are never too old to be a hip-hop star.

Bernstein tells Yahoo Canada Music that his mother works as a part-time librarian at Holy Blossom Temple and it was her idea to bring him and his band in to perform for the group, which features roughly 60 seniors.

“They all know my mom so they were very happy to meet me,” the rapper said. “I guess that she had, obviously, talked about me [to them].” Adding with a laugh, “Being the proud mom that she is.”

A week prior to the recital, Bernstein visited Holy Blossom Temple to conduct a workshop with the seniors featured in the video to compose lyrics for their own performance. What he found during the writing session was that the group was very enthusiastic about participating.

“Bev [who performs last in the clip] was so into it,” the musician explained. “She had written poetry all her life [and] when I went in to do the workshop, she came prepared and had written this three page rap.”

In addition to performing with the seniors, Abdominal and The Obliques performed for them and added in cover tracks of classic tunes to help get the older ladies and gentleman grooving.

“We had a few songs ready to help win them over to our side,” the rapper revealed. “We played covers of The Everly Brothers’s "Bye Bye Love" and [the Marvin Gaye classic] "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."

“Unfortunately, you can’t see the crowd in the video but they were really getting into it," he added. "They were dancing in their seats and some people were actually standing up and dancing. I don’t know if they were just being polite but I think that they genuinely were getting into it. “

Overall, the workshop and concert seems to have left a positive impact on the musician and we hope that he’ll continue his work with the older generation because this performance truly warmed our hearts.

“I think that [the experience] confirmed for me that music really is for everybody,” Bernstein said. “They made our week [and] we came out of there with high spirits.”

Check out more of Bernstein’s work by heading here and watch an inspiring music video that he made with his mom called “Courage” below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXSW16rqDFw

Follow Grace Stanisci on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @GraceS35