How
does a musician release an album that is celebrated in the jazz world, but is awarded
a Grammy for best R&B album of the year? Robert Glasper did just that with
his 2012 release Black Radio. The
success of Glasper’s style-blending album exposes a deeper symptom of 21st
century society: with instant access to practically limitless information, we
demand to be “hooked” within the first seconds of trying anything new. You can
call it a higher standard for art or just a short attention span, but you can
judge this trend for yourself. How many times have you checked out a new band,
book, or TV series because a friend recommended it, and shut it down halfway
through the first track, chapter, or episode? The fact is that we demand instant
satisfaction from media and if it fails to do so we rarely give it a second
chance. Robert Glasper addresses this phenomenon in Black Radio by featuring familiar elements in every track that he
knows a general audience will love and appreciate. Like a clever businessman’s
“foot in the door” technique, Glasper reels us in by featuring popular artists
like Mos Def and Bilal, then uses their recognized talents to open a new door
of dazzling jazz harmony and improvisation to hip-hop and R&B audiences.
Robert Glasper recognized that, in order to be a relevant artist, he needed to
keep at least ONE thing that most audiences know and love in every track on the
album (whether it’s a talented rapper/singer or just a really killer hip-hop
drum beat), and his plan worked to perfection in Black Radio.
Black Radio, which features superstar
rappers like Lupe Fiasco and R&B singers like Bilal, may be best understood
as a hip-hop/R&B album that bleeds with the spirit of jazz. The album took
the award for “Best R&B Album” at the 2013 Grammys although many fans were
upset that it didn’t receive “Best Jazz Album” as well. No matter which genre
people will categorize this album in, what’s amazing and inspiring about
Glasper’s work is that it really doesn’t matter what you call it – it’s just good
music. Whether you call it hip-hop, jazz, or R&B, Black Radio offers us a combination of styles we’ve never heard
before. Can you find a hip-hop album with the type of rich, delightful
harmonies we find in tracks like “Always Shine”? Can you find a jazz record
that balances a diverse array of rap features and vocal soloists with
traditional instrumental solos? And can you point to an R&B album with such
a high level of improvisation and instrumental musicianship? The answer to all
these questions is a resounding and confident “No!”
Glasper gives
today’s increasingly diversified music audience something that they can enjoy
without putting it in one neat, generic box. Today’s typical listener, who has
immediate access to nearly all of the world’s recorded music, is open to trying
pretty much any kind of music once. However, jazz is a genre that is losing
more and more of its fan base. How can jazz reclaim eager ears in the 2010’s? Robert
Glasper himself says it perfectly: We need to “make jazz cool again.” Glasper
explains the way he’s tried to open up the jazz scene to the music of today in
the interview captured below:
Glasper certainly has made jazz cool to a modern audience in Black Radio by combining his characteristically refreshing jazz harmonies, innovative improvisation and hypnotic hip-hop drum beats with the talents of fellow collaborators. Perhaps never before in the history of jazz has one album contained so many featured artists who are seamlessly integrated into the unique voice of the composer. In this way, Glasper takes a cue from the hip-hop tradition, where the main artist will bring in rappers to share the mic on the verses and singers to claim the choruses of their tracks. The end result of Glasper’s collaborative synthesis is truly sublime, hypnotic, and a revitalizing contribution to the worlds of both jazz and R&B.
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