It’s Sunday POU Family. The year of 2013 is almost over. Today, I will be highlighting the works of Robert Glasper and his Black Radio album.
Robert Glasper (born April 5, 1978 in Houston, Texas, United States) is an American jazz pianist and record producer. His 2012 album Black Radio won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 55th Grammy Awards pre-show.
Glasper’s earliest musical influence was his mother, Kim Yvette Glasper, who sang jazz and blues professionally. She took him with her to club dates rather than leave her son with babysitters. She also performed in church where the young Glasper began playing piano, and performed during services at three churches: Baptist, Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist. Glasper has said that he first developed his sound in church, where he learned his own way to hear harmony, and was inspired to mix church and gospel harmonies with jazz harmonies.
On February 28, 2012, Glasper released Black Radio, which featured performances by many neo-soul and hip hop artists including Lupe Fiasco, Bilal, Lalah Hathaway and Yasiin Bey. This synthesis of hip hop and jazz is supposedly Glasper’s attempt to correct what he sees as a lack of new energy in the jazz genre. In the April 2012 issue of Down Beat, Glasper stated that “I’ve gotten bored with jazz to the point where I wouldn’t mind something bad happening. Slapping hurts, but at some point it’ll wake you up. I feel like jazz needs a big-ass slap.” On November 5, 2012, Black Radio Recovered: The Remix EP was released with five remixed tracks from the prior album.
On October 29, 2013 Glasper released Black Radio 2, like the prior album, the band performed with a cross-section of R&B, Neo-soul, and Hip-hop artists, with some tracks having a segue at the end to reprise the prior song or introduce the next track.
Calls – Ft. Jill Scott
Smells Like Teen Spirit(1 Mic, 1 Take)
Afro Blue- Ft. Erykah Badu
Ah Yeah – Ft. Musiq Soulchild and Chrisette Michele