Chris Brown isn’t too happy with Record Academy. After losing the Grammy for Best R&B album to Robert Glasper, the R&B crooner took to Instagram to share his thoughts, putting the annual award show on blast for not crowning him as the winner. The singer was nominated for his Breezy (Deluxe) album, which was released last June.
Brown found himself with stiff competition this year for the R&B category. Along with Glasper and Brown, three other artists were nominated for the award, including Hip Hop Soul legend Mary J. Blige‘s album Good Morning Gorgeous, Lucky Daye’s Candydrip, and PJ Morton’s album, Watch The Sun. But Glasper’s Black Radio III album won the coveted award on Sunday night.
The “Go Crazy” hitmaker was not having any of it and decided to take his feelings to social media.
“WHO THE F*CK IS ROBERT GLASPER,” the singer posted on Instagram.
The singer continued by taking a few jabs at the renowned pianist, writing, “I gotta get my skills up… I’m a start playing the harmonica.”
Glasper is one of Jazz music’s premiere artists, with a career spanning over two decades. The pianist is also a record producer, songwriter, and musical arranger. Glapser’s work bridges several different musical and artistic genres. The 44-year-old Houston musician has won several awards throughout his career, including four Grammy Awards, and received nearly nine nominations across eight categories. He’s even played some keyboards on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly album.
That said, you would think that Brown might have some idea about Glasper, but alas, no.
Glasper must have seen this moment coming, posting this last week (which Brown took for his own IG):
Robert Glasper is doing it all these days. He’s just come off a European Tour in support of his latest album, Black Radio III, performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival earlier this month (where he received the prestigious Miles Davis Award), and is in the midst of scoring not one, but three TV and film projects. But the biggest and most personal undertaking of them all for the four-time Grammy Award-winning pianist, producer, and composer, is the inaugural Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa, CA.
Going down at the Charles Krug Winery from July 29th – 31st, Glasper is the festival’s artist in residence and curator. The lineup is an eclectic representation of jazz, hip-hop, and R&B’s inextricable ties. Where Chaka Khan, Maxwell, and Black Star are playing rare headlining sets, the lineup is as eye-popping for the creative collaboration performances like Snoop Dogg with Dinner Party (Glasper, Kamasi Washington, and Terrace Martin), The Soul Rebels with GZA & Talib Kweli, and Glasper alongside Erykah Badu, BJ The Chicago Kid, Ledisi and D Smoke — oh, and Dave Chappelle is also the weekend’s host.
We caught up with Glasper by phone to talk about the vision behind the festival, how the legacy of Miles Davis has inspired him, and how his career sees him tracing the evolution of Black music in incredible ways.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
AS: You just got back from Europe and I saw you first tour stop at Montreal Jazz Festival a couple weeks ago. Considering your work on the Everything’s Beautiful tribute album of sorts to Miles Davis, and scoring Miles Ahead, what was it like be honored with the Miles Davis Award as someone pushing jazz music forward into new realms the way Miles did?
It’s so funny how Miles Davis pops up in my life. Miles Davis is the first jazz musician that I ever heard cover pop songs. I was in junior high school and I got that record Miles Around The World where he covered Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and he also covered Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” That opened my eyes a lot. It’s part of the thread of who I am in just being open and being modern and not forgetting the history, but not being held back by the history. And then you fast forward and Don Cheadle asked me to score the Miles Davis movie he did, Miles Ahead, and that was the first thing I ever scored. Then in the middle of scoring that, Sony hits me and asks me to produce a record on Miles Davis because it was going to be his 90th birthday. So they asked me to do this remix record and I told them that I would love to, but I explained to them how I wanted to do it: It can’t just be that I put some hip-hop drums under a muted trumpet and call it a day. I wanted to really dive in. That’s why it’s [Everything’s Beautiful] also one of my favorite projects too, cause the way I did it, and the way I captured more of Miles than just his trumpet. I think he’s on two songs on the whole album as far as the trumpet goes. ‘Cause the other stuff, I literally have his breath tied in with the bass drum on a song, I have him talking, clapping, whistling. I’m trying to get the elements of the whole person. You can’t narrow him down to just the trumpet. So me getting that award, it just fell into place that with Miles, he is who he is, but he’s the reason that jazz started being so open to begin with. He’s a trailblazer.
He’s always looked to blur the definition of jazz, which is kind of what you’re pushing forward now.
Exactly, it was such an honor and I’ve been playing Montreal Jazz Festival for years, so it was an honor to get that. It was also the heaviest award I’ve ever gotten [laughs] I might’ve gotten knocked over by the trophy, it’s so heavy.
Oh yeah, I saw that thing, it was like as big as your torso!
And since that was the first day of my tour, I was gone for three weeks, so I had to have them mail it to me.
Victor Diaz Lamich/Montreal Jazz Fest
Well speaking of festivals, you’ve got Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa coming up. I think it really speaks to so much amazing collaboration between jazz and hip-hop and R&B artists. What’s been the vision behind the way you guys curated this and brought everything together?
The idea literally came from my residency at the Blue Note [in New York] every October. I’ve done it three times so far and this last October, Steve [Bensusan] and Alex [Kurland] from Blue Note, the owner and the booker, came to me and started talking about doing something outside of the residency, maybe doing a festival. They approached me and I was like, “That makes all the sense in the world.” We kept talking about it here and there and then literally this past April, we pulled the trigger on it and said, “Let’s actually do it and make it happen.” The festival is cool cause it feels like a family reunion. Everyone performing at the fest, I know them. I kinda got to handpick my own f*cking festival. It doesn’t get better than that. They’re all amazing artists and I got to handpick them and put them all together. That’s not a typical thing that an artist or musician gets to do.
Yeah, and for the more high-profile collab sets like Dinner Party and Snoop, there’s also one like Amber from Moonchild and Kiefer. Like, where the hell else can I see that?
Yeah, Amber’s my homie cause she was on my R+R=Now record. We’re all friends. And really, it’s like a pick-up game. Like when Michael Jordan did Space Jam and he got to invite all his NBA basketball player friends to play pick-up games with him while he was recording the movie. This is like my Space Jam [laughs]
It definitely feels like a version of your residency on steroids.
For sure. That’s literally where the idea burst from. We even got going with some guests that we’d had on the residency before and some that we wanted to have. I think it started with me making a list of people that I wanted at my next residency and then was like, “We should do a festival and have all these people.”
Something that struck me in Montreal and now looking at the lineup of this festival, and then looking at Black Radio — Black Radio III specifically — is that you’re really trying to tell the story of the evolution of Black music and where everything is at now. Talk a little about that and how everything is connected with the artists you’ve got playing at this festival that has your name at the very top.
A lot of people have put jazz in this box of exclusivity. Where it’s this exclusive thing that doesn’t f*ck with anybody else, any other genres. And that’s just not the case. In its conception, it’s already amuck. Jazz is mixed with classical music, blues, gospel… And later on, when you listen to certain jazz standards, they weren’t even standards, they were show tunes. They were songs people got from musicals. Like “My Favorite Things” or “All The Things You Are,” these important jazz standards, these weren’t jazz tunes. These were jazz artists reaching out into the world and bringing worldly things into the music and then they became standards. That’s kind of where I come from it. Black music is a big house and it has many genres under that roof, blues, gospel, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, you name it. I like to go room to room in this big house of Black music. Like I have a key to it all, because it’s in my DNA. I studied this music, I went on tours with some of the greatest in each genre, so I feel like I’m one of the people that can represent this thing that we call Black music. There are so many amazing artists and trailblazers, and to have them all in one festival represents so much and represents how free the music can be.
I’m hard-pressed to think if I’ve ever seen a festival lineup quite like this. What’s your hope for this weekend?
I’m hoping that this turns into an annual thing. But also, with the kinds of musicians and artists that we have, it lends itself to probably a lot of things we’ve never seen before. People sitting in with other people, cross-pollination on the stage. Most of the time on the festival stage, you go see that one artist and that’s what you see, thats what the festival is. But this one’s gonna be more cross-pollination, with a family-oriented kind of vibe. It’s smaller than most festivals on purpose. We’re trying to mirror the Blue Note residency so we wanted to keep it intimate (in festival terms) and try to mimic that feeling that you get when you’re in a small club; like the residency, with unexpected pop-up guests. I’m getting all kinds of calls from all kinds of artists on it. I’m really looking forward to it.
The brand new Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley was already sporting one of the more unreal music festival lineups of the summer. With Robert Glasper as the artist-in-residence and Dave Chappelle hosting the festivities, the slate of performers features Erykah Badu; Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli performing as Black Star; Thundercat and Maurice Brown, joined by Anderson .Paak; Flying Lotus and The Soul Rebels, joined by GZA and Kweli; and Maxwell. Not bad right?
But this was merely the two-day slate, as the Blue Note Jazz Fest has now added a third day and a ton of new big-time acts. The most significant addition is easily Snoop Dogg, who’ll be performing a set alongside Dinner Party, the Uproxx-favorite project consisting of Glasper, 9th Wonder, Terrace Martin, and Kamasi Washington. Also added to the lineup are R&B and soul legend Chaka Khan, hip-hop production mastermind Madlib, Chris Dave & The Drumheadz, pianist Kiefer with Moonchild’s Amber Navran, and more.
Suffice it to say, a great thing just got even better. The festival will be going down from July 29 to July 31 at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, CA. This is in the heart of Napa Valley’s wine country and all in all is a stellar addition to the summer festival circuit.
Check out the daily lineups below and get your single-day tickets here.
The notion of a “jazz music” festival has become about a lot more than just jazz. Like the storied Montreal Jazz Festival and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival that came before it, the brand new Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley presents the best in jazz music and the hip-hop and R&B artists who are inextricably tied to the genre’s roots. Blue Note’s first outdoor, multi-stage festival will be hosted by Dave Chappelle and features Robert Glasper as the artist-in-residence. Glasper will be performing onstage alongside Erykah Badu, Ledisi, D Smoke, Terrace Martin, and BJ The Chicago Kid. It all goes down at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, CA on July 30th and 31st and the loaded lineup just keeps getting better from there.
Also performing at Blue Note Jazz Festival will be Maxwell, the newly reunited Black Star, Thundercat, and Flying Lotus. But the most intriguing part of the lineup is the jazz and hip-hop collaboration sets: Maurice Brown featuring Anderson .Paak?! The Soul Rebels featuring GZA & Talib Kweli?! Now this is unique curation. Not to mention appearances from Chief Adjuah (fka Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah), Butcher Brown, Keyon Harrold, and late-night DJ sets from Dj Jazzy Jeff and Badu’s DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown alter ego.
Peep the full lineup poster below and stay tuned for tickets which go on sale on 04/26 here.
One of the finest urban festivals in the world, Montreal Jazz Festival is back for its 42nd year with one of its best lineups ever. The Downtown Montreal celebration will be showcasing over 350 global artists in programming which is mostly free and includes jazz, rock, hip-hop, and so much more. That’s right: two thirds of the programming at MTL Jazz is free to the public in an incredible effort from the Canadian government’s dedication to the arts and longtime sponsors in TD Bank and Rio Tinto.
This year’s lineup is led by The Roots, Tash Sultana, Robert Glasper, Ludovico Einaudi, Kamasi Washington, Pink Martini, Woodkid, and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats. It’s a testament to how not only jazz music will be on display in Montreal’s outdoor stages and indoor venues from June 30th to July 9th.
The diversely-minded lineup also features highlights in the multi-talented Masego, New Orleans trumpet player Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, vocalist Gregory Porter, rapper Joey Badass, Brazilian muse Bebel Gilberto, the British jazz-hop of Alfa Mist, singer/violinist Sudan Archives, a nu-jazz collaboration set from Pino Palladino and Blake Mills featuring Sam Gendel and Abe Rounds, plus so much more. This is truly a bucket list-type of festival experience for any music lover that we can’t recommend enough.
Ticketed concerts at Montreal Jazz festival go on sale starting Friday, April 1 at 10 a.m. here. Check out the lineup below.
After announcing the release date for his upcoming album, Black Radio III, and sharing its latest single, “Black Superhero,” Robert Glasper brought the new music to a national television audience with a star-studded appearance on The Tonight Show. Playing a medley of “In Tune” and “Black Superhero” (minus Big KRIT and Killer Mike, two of the three featured guests on the latter), Glasper invited guests Amir Sulaiman, BJ the Chicago Kid, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and Rapsody to perform with him.
After Sulaiman opens the set with a passionate spoken-word piece, BJ joins in to sing his verse and the chorus from “Black Superhero,” and Rapsody shows up to add her own verse to the song in place of the missing KRIT and Mike, all while DJ Jazzy Jeff adds his signature scratches and Glasper tickles the ivories. “All my superheroes Black,” Rapsody rhymes as she and BJ bop to the bluesy piano riff and old-school beatbox vibes. It’s a cool rendition of the new track, and should Black Radio III continue the trend that most of Glasper’s music has stuck to, it’ll be a shoo-in for another Progressive R&B Album nomination at the next Grammys.
Watch Robert Glasper’s Tonight Show performance of “In Tune/Black Superhero” above.
Grammy-winning producer Robert Glasper returns with a new single to announce the release date for his upcoming album, Black Radio III, which drops February 25 via Concord Loma Vista. The timing couldn’t be better, as 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the original Black Radio album, which earned Glasper his first-ever Grammy for Best R&B Album. After sharing “Better Than I Imagined” featuring HER last year, Glasper follows up today with the video for “Black Superhero.”
Opening with a quote from culture critic Ta-Nehisi Coates and featuring verses from Killer Mike, BJ The Chicago Kid, and Big KRIT, “Black Superheroes” contemplates the everyday heroism of normal people creating a life in a nation where that’s not always the easiest thing to do. Despite the unwelcoming conditions of life in America for many Black Americans, whether they are barbers, politicians, teachers, or even just children, thriving is close enough to a superpower.
The video’s director, Charlie Buhler, offered this explanation in a press release: “‘Black Superhero’ is a visual love letter to the Black community. It’s an ode to our strength, vibrancy, and joy. We have struggled, and yet we are still here, and not only are we here, but we are so much more than the adversity heaped upon us. I am grateful to Robert and the team at Loma Vista for trusting me with such a powerful and important song, and everyone who came together to help bring the concept to life. It was a true labor of love.”
Watch Robert Glasper’s “Black Superhero” video above.
Black Radio III is due 2/25 via Concord Loma Vista. You can pre-order it here.
A four-time Grammy winner, Robert Glasper fluidly straddles the world of jazz, hip-hop and R&B with vigor and class. Last year’s Dinner Party EP with multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin, saxophonist Kamasi Washington and hip-hop producer 9th Wonder brought Glasper together with like-minded eclectics for one of the best releases of the year. Now, Glasper and Martin have announced a global livestream of a Dinner Party performance going down tomorrow in the U.S. and Saturday in Europe and Australia.
The performance sees an opportunity for fans worldwide who can’t attend Glasper’s ongoing Blue Note jazz club residency in New York City, to engage with his music in a visually stunning, high-fidelity environment presented in 4K UHD and Dolby Atmos sound. Joining Glasper and Martin, are decorated New Orleans trumpet player Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, along with bassist Burniss Travis, drummer Justin Tyson, and DJ Jahi Sundance, who make up the Robert Glasper Trio backing band. Glasper shared some thoughts on the performance in a statement:
“I’m really excited for people to see these shows. People have been asking when I’m coming to their city but I can’t travel everywhere right now, obviously. It was a really cool experience to perform in the space with 3D screens. It looked kind of trippy and fun while we were recording, so I’m looking forward to watching it again and being able to experience it with fans that can’t see me live right now. I hope they have as much fun watching it as we did while recording it.”
The collective played a show together last month, which is also currently available, and both streams will be available for on-demand viewing now until November 30 via On Air. Glasper/Martin Presents Dinner Party happens 10/29 at 8 pm ET and 8 pm PT as well as on 10/30 in London and Sydney at 8 pm in each region. Tickets can be purchased here and the performance will be available On Demand until 11/30.
