The Bay Area has shaped some of the biggest movements in music history. One of them WAS the hyphy movement of the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Most known for artists like Mac Dre, Keak Da Sneak and E-40.
And last September, E-40 performed with LaRussell at Vallejo’s Dock of the Bay Fest and a harpist shared the stage with them.
More recently, GEO the harpist was performing in the Bay Area for this year's Super Bowl. She played community events across the Bay and inside the stadium on game day.
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STORY TRANSCRIPT:
(at concert) LARUSSELL: I’ve got a live harp outside. Can ya’ll say, “Go GEO?”
Harp plays
Sounds of a concert crowd.
REPORTER: Gabrielle Elyse Oberes Padre just goes by GEO on stage.
Sounds of concert.
REPORTER: She fits right in at a rap show - dancing with LaRussell’s band The Yee Section as they jam to E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go.”
REPORTER: So how did GEO flip this classical instrument to the hip hop stage?
REPORTER ON TAPE: I’m here with GEO to record her process.
REPORTER: We’re in GEO’s makeshift studio in San Mateo - which is also her parents' detached garage. GEO is an improviser. She figures out songs on the spot - partly because collaborators like LaRussell don’t make setlists before performances, and partly because this is just how her brain works.
REPORTER ON TAPE: So I have here, “Colors Collide” by The Seshen…
Sounds of “Colors Collide” by The Seshen.
REPORTER: She asked me to pick out a song so she can demonstrate.
GEO: So I hear like a C, C sharp and because that's a C sharp, I'm assuming it's in C sharp minor because it starts with that.
REPORTER: In no time, she's got the tune.
Sounds of harp playing.
GEO: So I kind of figured out the chord progression and I would pretend I'm playing, like with this live, and so it kind of sounds like…
REPORTER: Her harp is huge. Six foot two, a whole foot taller than she is. An instrument of that size is meant to be played sitting down, but when the energy is high, GEO is on her feet.
GEO: And so to show off the harp, like something that the harp can only do. I could do, like…
Sounds of harp playing
…you could do that on the harp, but then moving it up, doing this…
Sounds of harp playing.
…having like a glissando, that's what it's called.
Sounds of a performance.
GEO: We are like dancing hella on stage and sometimes we like have to stop playing our instrument 'cause everyone's like, oh my God. That's where like the whole like hyphy energy genuinely comes in.
REPORTER: If you go to her Instagram, you'll see plenty of videos of her playing her harp and moving along with the music. Inserting a few dance breaks in between.
GEO: I have already had a magnetic energy and I dance in a way, like I really don't care. If I hear a car alarm, I'm the kind of person that would jokingly start 'Dougie'-ing to the car alarm. (GEO laughs)
Sounds of “Jump Around” by House of Pain.
RAMIL PADRE: I'll never forget the day when we were playing, uhhh, “Jump Around,” you know, that popular song?
MICHELLE OBERES-PADRE: She was dancing in front of the crib. I remember that.
REPORTER: These are GEO’s parents, Ramil and Michelle
RAMIL: And she was probably two or three and she's just dancing all over the place.
REPORTER: With all that energy, gymnastics was the perfect hobby for little GEO. She even had Olympic dreams, until a scoliosis diagnosis in middle school led to a spinal fusion and 20 titanium screws.
With gymnastics out of the picture, music became the outlet for all of her energy.
Growing up, GEO was always at her grandparents' place. They had a keyboard where the keys lit up, this is where she started learning to play songs by ear.
MICHELLE: I always thought the most classically trained was the best teacher.
REPORTER: But GEO’s intuitive way of learning music didn’t fit with traditional teaching. She says her early instructors were disappointed, calling her lazy and unteachable for doing what came naturally.
Her mom kept searching for a teacher that would connect with her and GEO kept exploring - first piano, then cello, then flute. Michelle recalls the day she went to pick up GEO after her first lesson with her new teacher.
MICHELLE: And she's like, “Did you know that your baby can play by ear?”
REPORTER: It was the first time someone saw GEO’s talent as something to be celebrated rather than fixed.
MICHELLE: Makes me cry when I think about it. But she really helped us understand that yeah, there is not just one way.
REPORTER: And that’s when GEO found the instrument that captured her imagination, a foot and a half tall Celtic harp.
RAMIL: She felt like it was her birthday. And when I heard that, I was like, “What?”
REPORTER: Her parents invested in GEO, and her music. For her first harp, they decided on a used Lyon and Healy Prelude 40.
MICHELLE: We pooled our funds and bought the cheapest one we can get shipped from Virginia. Like, we spent hours hunting for a harp that we could afford.
RAMIL: We decided to put the down payment that was gonna go towards the car, towards her harp.
REPORTER: In seventh grade, GEO joined the Peninsula Youth Orchestra. That’s where she picked up bass, viola, and even trombone.
But GEO and her parents sometimes felt like they were outsiders there. She says many of the other families were wealthy and older, and she says they used to question her about playing the harp.
GEO: I understand people being surprised that someone does play the harp at all. However, it was a question that was asked towards me and my family more often than the other harpists that were white that I played with.
REPORTER: GEO recalls showing up to a private gig at a mansion, and one of the guests throwing their coat on her harp.
Eventually she stopped performing in public. She mostly played for friends and family. Every once in a while, posting a cover on social media…
Sounds of “Thizzle Dance” by Mac Dre.
REPORTER: In December of 2024, she posted her, now viral, rendition of “Thizzle Dance” by Mac Dre.
Sounds of harp playing.
GEO: I posted that on TikTok and I posted that on Instagram and those both like, really blew up.
REPORTER: Bay Area artists like Kehlani and P-LO started following her and another artist was getting tagged a lot: LaRussell.
Sounds of “Beautiful Day” by LaRussell.
LARUSSELL: You know, I got a band full of instrumentalists, so when I see another dope one, and she was from the Bay and she had our energy, it was like an easy call and I invited her out to one of our shows.
(at concert) DJ KENZO: Like I said before, if you don’t know who I am, I go by the name of DJ KenZo. Who’s ready to see LaRussell? Make some noise!
Sounds of crowd cheering.
REPORTER: In November of 2025, LaRussell and The Yee Section performed live at SFMOMA.
(at concert) LARUSSELL: GEO, can you play the harp for them real quick? We got a little song. This is a live harp. Most people ain’t never even heard a live harp but you get to experience that at the SFMOMA, you hear me?
REPORTER: GEO’s finally found a sound and a space that feels like her.
GEO: No one's yelling at me anymore or disappointed. It's a different type of energy I've never experienced, like, in my life at all, that people are excited and like so happy to, to see me doing something that they've never seen before in, in a positive light.
REPORTER: Now she's hoping that by carrying the harp into communities and stages where it hasn't always been welcome, she'll help someone else find their place in music too.
Sounds of flute and harp playing.