Luck of the Irish brings bagpiper and Jamaican rap artist together for 'The Sound of the Bagpipe'

An Irish bagpiper and a Jamaican hip-hop artist seem an unlikely duo, but they've collaborated on a music video of reels and reggae filmed on the Emerald Isle.

Bronxites Brian McGuire, a banker by day and a piper with NY Metro Pipe Band, and Rally Bop, who mixes rap and hard-charging reggae, made "The Sound of the Bagpipe" after a Harlem-born music producer brought them together.

McGuire, 31, was having a drink in the Hudson Hotel bar last fall when he met Will Roberson, an independent producer whose clients range from French hip-hop group KDD to New Age artist Jean Michel Jarre and Jose Feliciano.

"We had a good conversation, and I gave him a card and said call me if you ever need a bagpiper," McGuire said.

"I thanked him," Roberson, 35, recalled with a laugh, "but I said to myself, 'I don't think I'll ever be calling him.'"

A week later, Rally called Roberson with a song that used an electronic bagpipe sound. "I said, 'I just met this bagpiper!'" Roberson said. "Let's use live bagpipe music."

So Roberson got the two musicians together, and a few weeks later, McGuire - wearing his red tartan kilt - was playing the pipes in a music video with Rally Bop in scenic spots in Dublin and Belfast, as well as the streets of Paris and Harlem.

"They sent me to Dublin, a cold place..." Rally raps in his island lilt, and McGuire skirls "Amazing Grace" and other Irish standards.

The video ends at the Giant's Causeway, the natural wonder of stone columns at the northern tip of Northern Ireland, as a rainbow curves over the sky.

"My Irish friends love the video," said McGuire, who lives in Riverdale.

McGuire was raised in Breezy Point, Queens, and went to Iona College on a bagpipe scholarship. In August, the NY Metro Pipe Band is set to compete in the world championship of pipers in Scotland.

Rally Bop, 28, whose given name is Rohan Wilson, came to the Wakefield section of the Bronx from Jamaica when he was 10 and began writing songs and performing as a deejay at 14. He has made numerous CDs and music videos.

Roberson, Rally and McGuire all wore Irish tweed caps as they raised a pint to toast Wednesday night's debut of the video at The Saloon on E. 84th St. in Manhattan. The video is also on YouTube.

"The Jamaicans and the Irish seem to get along well," McGuire said.

"We both enjoy a good pint of Guinness - and are not too fond of the British," Rally quipped.