You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - "Afro Blue" — Robert Glasper

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

When does Afro Blue and Smells Like Teen Spirit belong on the same record? When it's a Robert Glasper album! In 2012, Glasper's Black Radio brought together artists like Erykah Badu to bring a jazz standard, Afro Blue, back into the popular music canon. Black Radio hit #1 on the jazz charts, while simultaneously reaching #4 on the hip-hop R&B charts and #15 on the Top 200. The Blue Note pianist has been bending genres since the 90s, bringing together the best of traditional jazz and weaving it seamlessly with R&B, hip-hop, soul and rock & roll. And it all fits, because Glasper is equally at home in all of these categories. He grew up listening to all kinds of music, like Nirvana, Billy Joel, Busta Rhymes -- everything. Black Radio, he says, was a way to put his "life on wax". Rob Harvilla from 60 Songs to Explain the 90s: The 2000s joins Adam and Peter to dive into what makes this album great, and how it refutes from any attempt to categorize it. From the J. Dilla Influence, to Casey Benjamin's album-defining flute, to the Erykah Badu of it all, you'll never hear this album the same way again.And this album inspired what is possibly our best YHI outro yet. Let us know if you agree!🟠 Get the YHI newsletter for bonus stories that didn't make the pod.🔵 Start your free Open Studio trial for ALLLLL your jazz lesson needs.

Peter Martin. What's up, man? Today on the show, we've got Rob from 60 songs that explain the 90s. Great podcast. I love Rob. I love his pod.

And I love the 90s. Yeah, me too. And I thought in honor of all of that, maybe we start the show off with like an iconic 90s song, a song that maybe defined that decade. Oh, I got you. I got you.

You said 90s, right? Yeah, you remember those? Oh, yes, sir. Oh, did not see this coming, but I love it. Yeah, you know, they all went back to Titanic in the end. Celine Dion's my heart will go on. I was thinking maybe like,

That's 90s too Yeah, that's definitely 90s But I think we need something more jazz Something better for this group Something like fits our vibe a little more Yeah, yeah Like some Gen X jazz kind of Oh yeah

Bob's got it Bob's got it I'm Adam Menace And I'm Peter Martin And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast Music Explored Explored Brought to today by Open Studio

Go to Open StudioJazz.com For your jazz lesson needs Peter, today's another special day It is It's always special day here at your hero. Some days are more special than others. That's right.

But today we're talking about an incredible monumental song from one of my favorite albums of the 2010s. And we also have a very special guest on the show today. Joining us is Rob Harvilla. Rob is the music journalist

at The Ringer and the creator of 60 songs to explain the 90s, colon the 2000s. Yeah. Rob, thanks for being here, man. It's so embarrassing when anyone else says the colon.

It's really funny when I say it, but it's humiliating when anyone else says it. I don't know how that works. I don't know how to say, because if I say 60 songs, to explain the 90s, the 2000s, you know what I mean?

It's a little... It doesn't work at all. You need punctuation there. The colon is necessary. The colon is absolutely necessary. It's just mortifying at the same time. Man. So today, Rob, we brought you here

because you have this incredible show where you talk about individual songs and their cultural. significance, specifically with your stories involved of growing up in the 90s and the 2000s. And for me, this track, and I think for everybody here, we're going to be talking about Robert Glasper's Afro Blue from Black Radio. This track is one of those cultural touchstones. I think for a lot of musicians and a lot of music lovers from that era. Before we get into it, Rob, what's your relationship with this song? Have you spent much time with this? I remember, I listened to this

when it came out and I've dipped into and out of Robert Glass for over the years. I'd never done like the deep dive, so I was very excited to have the opportunity to do that. I think I'd come at this song more from the Erica Badu side of things. I love Erica Badu, one of my favorite artists, every one of my favorite singers, one of my favorite live performers. So that's the draw for me. To the extent that, you know, part of what's great about this record is he has all these guests, you know, who pull in people, you know, from the R&B world, the hip-hop world, you know, Mo's Deft, etc. Like, this is the feature that really got me, right? Like, if Erica Badu is interested in this person,

then I am automatically 10 times more interested in this person, you know? Well, and I think you've already brought up what was going to be one of my big hot takes on this for this track. From what I remember on this, everybody that was sort of outside of the jazz, you know, intelligentsia. Is that an oxymour? We don't know. but thought this was a Erica Badu single and possibly from some Erica Badu album

it was Erica Badu's Afro Blue was that your guys recollection of it? I mean for me it was such a big deal this whole album that that was not my recollection I definitely was very much featuring Erica Badu See Rob that's his way of saying he's part of the jazz Intelligency might even be the head of the jazz intelligentsia

Is that a different body than the jazz police? Is that like a church and state? Oh, very different. I think isn't jazz intelligentsia? Connected, though. I think jazz intelligentsia is an espresso roast, isn't it? Right. I feel like it might be Chicago. That's right. Okay. So before we get too deep, though, into black radio and Afro blue, Rob, because you're on our show, we want to kind of pay a little tribute to you in your podcasting style. So Rob does these great, these great intros to his subjects, where he goes down a little off the beaten path where you're like, wait, when are we talking about? I thought we were talking about the red hot chili peppers. Why are we talking about the who?

I ramble at great length. So we also loved ramble, but I wanted to start this conversation by talking about not Robert Glasper, incredible musician, but another incredible musician, Herbie Hancock. Yes. So there's a lot of parallels. How are we able to work Herbie Hancock into this podcast? What an amazing thing. We've never done that before. We can't go 15 minutes talking about Herbie. So this is not. I just listen to the thrust episode, you know, the headhunt episode, his greatest era. That was rad, man. It's such a crate. It's a great stretch. The album covers. The one raised in the spaceship, like a little circular spaceship. I want

that spaceship, man. It's 100% my dream to own a keyboard-powered spaceship at some point. The circular bubble that's powered by a circular synthesizer. I'll be the co-pilot with Herbie. That's my dream. If I were you, I wouldn't get in it. Honestly, it's not going to stay in the air very long.

I don't think the FAA would. Definitely not. Okay, so here's, follow me here, right? So here's what I'm thinking. So there's some parallels here. So, you know, in Herbie's storied career, he starts out as this amazing prodigy. He's playing in straight-ahead situations.

You know, obviously he starts playing with Miles Davis. But there's a point in his solo career, specifically when he's with I'muantishi, who we love. We love that Mwantishi band, that project around, right around 1970. where he's really exploring some spacey sounds. Yeah. So there's this point, though,

that Herbie's on a meditation retreat, and he's meditating for a long... He's, like, sitting a long session. He's singing a mantra in his head, and he's a little bit frustrated with his spacey explorations, and as he's sitting meditation with his mantra, this song comes into his head, and won't get out of his head for the entire retreat.

He's like, don't talk about my bantra. I don't think I would be able to meditate with that song. So he gets Sly and the Family Stones, thank you, stuck in his head for this whole retreat. And he decides that funky music is something that he wants to explore, that he wants to play music that connects with people. It's not just an exploration for him and his bandmates. Oh, he's...

Well, no, I'm just going to say... Wait, what? To be fair, to be fair, this is quite a few years before. I mean, after. Yes. He had done... No, no, no, he had been funking it up a little bit, but he'd... The precursor to...

Yeah, of course, but the Mwandishi era, he's like, you know, going into really like these exploratory spaces, and he just wasn't feeling... He actually writes about this in his book a lot. He wasn't feeling connected even to his own music and especially to the audiences. So he decides that he's going to try a new sound. He was also frustrated with some of the jazz traditionalists, which, you know, this was a time where Miles was doing Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson and in a silent way and all this stuff.

And people are like, what the hell is happening here? So Herbie chimes in with nothing more than this banger. Noodles. He's reaching for the keyboard. So that's Chameleon, of course, from Herbie's... There it is. From Herbie's Headhunters album. and Herbie's all of a sudden, he's in this new place.

Now, he, like, dips back and forth to straight-ahead jazz for the rest of his career. He does, like, you know, they'll do acoustic piano duos with Chick-Corea. He'll make trio albums, the BSOP stuff. Yeah. He's always doing that. He was doing it last night, somewhere in the world. Somewhere in the world.

Last night, an 85-year-old, Herbie Hancock was doing it somewhere. And it's kind of set the standard. Now, we had mentioned on that Herbie's Greatest Era show that the end of, we kind of calculated that the end of the headhunters era would have been 1978. Now, 1978 was also the year that Robert Glasper was born.

Do you guys like that as a segue? Now, who's the jazz journalist now? Come on. And me, I was born in 1978. And that makes this even more impressive. That's right. Yeah. So it's... I'm going to worm my way into this, yes.

It's Rob Glasper and Rob Harvilla. And that's what people talk about in 1970. Yeah, so... I was alive in 78. I can throw that out there. Robert Glass was born in 1978, and he grew up in Houston, Texas. Shout out to Houston, by the way.

So many great musicians, especially of Robert Glasper's era coming out of Texas. Well, it is a big-ass city. It's a huge-ass city, but it's very large, brawling, yeah. But an unstoppable... Yeah, I mean, you talk about the musicians

that came out of the high school, the performing arts that he went to. It's an endless... parade. So, you know, Robert grew up in a musical home. His mom loved all kinds of music. He's listening to Oscar Peterson. He's listening to Aretha Franklin. He's also listening to Peter Gabriel and Billy Joel. And then he is even into things like Nirvana, smells like Teen Spirit and radio head as most people who were born in 1978, you couldn't kind of get away from it at that time. And so just to kind of put a bow on the whole connection between Herbie's journey into more popular

Fair. You know, the Chameleon and the Headhunters album was a huge hit. You know, like the biggest selling jazz album to date when it was released, and I think that's something that Robert Glasper and Herbie have in common is this, like, mass appeal. On Robert Gloub's first trio album, Bob Hurston, Damien,

Reed, they opened the album with Maiden Voyage, Herbie Hancock's song, but listen to the arrangement. Brad Meldow or Robert Glasper? This is not, Bradth, no. Okay. It's this mashup essentially between radio heads, everything in this right place from Kid A. And Herbie Hancock's main voyage.

And I think that really sums up what black radio would become. You know, this like collaboration between that's all kind of coming through Robert. But it's this collaboration between old and new that's happening simultaneously in all of his music. And I think it's what makes him really compelling is he's not just forward thinking, but he's all. also backward thinking in that he's pulling from the past, he's looking towards the future. And you could say this about all of our favorite artists. That's what great artists do from Herbie Hancock to Miles Davis to Robert Glasper. So awesome.

Yeah. Good stuff. So. What do you think, Rob? I was going to ask you if from the jazz side of things when Black Radio came out, if it was seen as a provocation. You know, you've talked a lot about Herbie Hancock in the show. And my first introduction to Herbie Hancock was Rocket. Right?

Like I knew him as the Rocket guy. And there came a moment where I was like, oh, he does jazz too. That's interesting. It's almost defensive to say that. But I've always understood, you know, the headhunter's era to some extent, but Rocket definitely as, you know, the jazz intelligentsia. Yeah. The Jazz police.

Jazz FBI, the CIA. It upset people. Yeah. Like legitimately. For somebody, you know, for such a famous and beloved, you know, an important jazz musician to be doing, you know, however you would describe what the Rocket video was doing. That was an awesome video. Well, let's listen to just a hint of rocket. Hit it, hit me.

There it is. Ah, yes. Swinging. MTV, 1980, what, 84, 83. But you're absolutely right, Rob. For a lot of folks, this was like their introduction to Herbie Hancock, like a mass amount of people. And I was just, I always wondered if, you know, people who had followed Robert Glass for his career, because he's got like three or four albums, four or five maybe prior to Black Radio.

He's got an established career. And maybe he's no, obviously, you know, he's doing, he's working in Radiohead from the beginning. I think he actually does like a credited mashup of Maiden Voyage and everything in its right place. On another album. He does. Like maybe his third record. Like he, he's known for experimentation. but this is still a huge break, it seems to me,

and his discography, Black Radio, and I was just wondering if, like, jazz people were upset at all about it. You know, I think I'm trying to remember back to that time. I think it depended upon sort of where you came in to the music. Because, you know, I think Rob, Robert, he came just late enough that he caught a little bit of, like, the Winton Marsalis, kind of brand for Marcellus, driven,

you know, Roy Hargrove, and we definitely should talk about Roy, because he was a huge influence on, for sure. On Glasper, also from Texas, from Dallas.

But the idea that, like, he had a little bit more freedom than the first wave of the Jazz Lions. And as a part-time journalist, I have to say that, I was kind of part of that group,

and so I don't have a lot of objectivity about it. But, like, you know, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Mark Whitfield, that whole crew, like Joshua Redmond even, we didn't have a lot of like things, the record companies,

the festivals, the way things were set up were pretty strict and pretty, I mean, yeah, you could depart a little bit, but it was more like, oh, like I remember some of those records we did in the,

I guess, earlier mid-90s with Joshua Redmond, people like, oh, oh, what are you, you're playing a backbeat on a jazz record? What's going to happen? And that kind of a thing. And then Roy Hargrove was somebody that was really big for kind of,

of blowing that up, but staying within the tradition and always kind of going back and forth. So I think by the time Glasper came along, which it doesn't see, he seems like he's part of that group, but he's not. He's a little bit later. I remember, I was, there's a great pianist, great guy named Jesse McBride in New Orleans, late 90s, who was also from Houston. He was a couple of years ahead of Robert Glasper at the Performing Arts High School there. And I was actually teaching him at University of New Orleans. I subbed for a semester for Ellis Marcellus when he took a sabbatical. And I was, like only a few years older than Jesse actually,

but I was teaching him for whatever reason, which was basically just me and Jesse hanging out. But I remember that, and this must have been like, I don't know, 97, 98, sometime around there. But like, I remember him talking about, man, we got all these great musicians. Man, this guy, Rob, you got to hear him.

He kept, like, every time we'd get together for a lesson, which was on the basketball court sometimes, sometimes in front of a piano, he'd be like, man, you know, this guy Rob, he's about to go up to New York, he's going up to New York and I was like, but that's when I first heard about Robert Glasper actually. Yeah.

Was him talking about him. And so he came in just like a little bit later. He had a lot of like, you know, really, really good straight ahead jazz chops. But he was always doing other stuff, always kind of, I'm trying to remember like him and Bilal. That was pretty early on when he got to New York that they started doing things together. So it was really, like he was sort of half a generation or a third of a generation later from the young lions. I mean, he played with Roy. He played with McBride.

I play with Terrence Blancher. So he caught a lot of that. But I think by, what was this, 2012 was, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think by this point, for me, I know, I was like, I wasn't surprised at all. Yeah, I think, Rob, the thing with Glasper is, is like, when you're, if you're in that scene, he was the next big thing from the time he was a teenager. You know what I mean? Like, everybody.

And actually, we were at the new school jazz and contemporary music program at the same time in New York. But, I mean. And what year did you get there? I got there in 2000. Okay, and that's when he got there. And I think he was already there for a year, I was say, or maybe he just had that too. But it didn't matter because he was never there.

He was like on the road with common. Right. You know what I mean? Like, or playing with Roy Hargrove or like, he would, you would know that he was in the building once every couple months because the common area would be like erupting with laughter. Robert Glass were like famously hilarious, he is funny.

Entertaining, charismatic, dude. Yeah. And so you would just be walking down the ups and stuff. stairs hall and you would hear like uproarious laughter and be like oh glass was here like and then you know you would see a group of young pianists like huddled around a rehearsal room and it's just them looking at robert glasper in his like you know uh wayne shorter ensemble or whatever he was he was playing in or whatever and i was one of those too i was you're peering in and you're just like man this is like what is happening here.

Like, what is, how, like, how is he, he was already sort of blending these things in his straight ahead playing. Yeah. In this beautiful way. And I remember some of the teachers would even talk about, like, like, someone like, yeah, he did this arrangement

of blue skies, this Irving Berlin standard. And she's like, the teacher was like, it sounded like this like waterfall of sound that I'd never heard before. And this is like a 50-year-old experience, grizzled New York jazz pianist, you know, and I was like, hey, hey, 50's right around the corner for you guys.

Be careful, man. But you just never heard them talk about young people like that. They were always like, you need to shed and you need a, blah, blah, but they were, there was like a kind of a built-in respect for Robert Glasper even at that time, which I thought was fascinating. And some built-in, to your point, Rob, like some built-in, some of the hard-nosed traditionalists were like very much like, no thank you. Right. This is not what we do. This is. But I think that's, that naturally happens.

And you can, you know, Robert Glassper has talked about this. talked about is frustration with jazz traditionalists. And that's kind of what you can, you can see him, by the way, building in the albums, he's building up the Black Radio. Like, he's bringing up, he's doing a lot with Ballal. He's starting to bring in more hip hop influences into his, even his trio stuff.

And then Black Radio is just like an explosion of like, he figured it out. Like he really nailed it, you know, like the... And then he tried to repeat it three times. It's what you do. That's what you do. Sequels. That's what runs the world. That the IP industry.

is everything now. Yeah. But maybe to your point, too, Rob, in terms of Rocket, and it's interesting because I have a similar kind of connection point with Herbie Hancock, but maybe Black radio is Robert Glasper's Rocket in that, like, this was the time when a bunch of people that didn't know him, either personally or from the insider jet, you know, because we always think, like, when you're in the jazz world,

like, it doesn't matter how much you're appreciated or lauded or lionized. you know anybody can get you right so like if you're interested in robert glasper and he was playing at the vanguard you can just go up and touch him afterwards hey how you do it and stuff you know but if you're a big rnb star something like you're separated by m tv or bt or whatever and so i think for everybody else that hadn't touched him at some point on the streets of new york or the clubs this was the time when it was like and really much later i mean this all leads up to like you know black radio three just a couple years ago when he wins, you know, for the best R&B record of the year. And Chris

Brown is like, who the fuck is this guy famously like that? But in great Robert Glassper. 30 years later after his first record or whatever. In great Robert Glasper fashion, he makes a kill-in t-shirt that says, who the fuck is Robert Glasper and like sells out of us. Now everybody knows. But I mean, that's kind of like, so I mean,

I think this was the first step to like a lot of people, 2012-ish, early. A lot of people being like still maybe a little bit like, oh, that's a great Erica Badu-Track. Or there's Layla Hathaway thing on there, whatever. It's like, is this guy producing? I mean, who that's in kind of R&B and hip-hop and stuff is really worried about some

little killing little piano lines coming in and out here and there and what the chords are? Nobody cares about that. They might like it, but they're like, oh, that's Erica Badu. So maybe let's talk a little bit about the song itself and Afro Blue. So, you know, one of the great things about this, like I said, is like his ability to look forward and backward at the same time. And it's interesting because on this album are songs like, smells like Teen Spirit, right?

Like a song that at the time wasn't, I mean, it was a classic already, but it's certainly contemporary. You wouldn't put it on a jazz album necessarily. Right. Conveniently stuck is the last track, too. Yeah. I was going to say, being on the last track seems significant to me. It's like a weird downer ending.

Yeah. And putting Smells Like Teen Spirit on a record called Black Radio feels very pointed to me. to me, you know, and it, I want to say it doesn't quite fit on the record. It doesn't have the same sort of warmth and loveliness of much of the rest of the record. But maybe there's more connection there than I'm willing to admit. But yeah, it smells like Teen Spirit is the last track on this record. Really strikes me every time I listen to it.

It's pretty haunting. It is. Casey Benjamin here on the vocal. I love Casey on this. The band for the Robert Glassberg Experiment, Casey Benjamin, on Reeds, flute, saxophone, vocoder, keys as well, Derek Hodge on the bass, and Chris Dave on the drums, who we'll talk about. Background there.

The kick drum. The kick drum. That's Chris Dave. That's Chris Dave. That's a dead-da-da-da-da-da-da. And that's single. Like most drummers would have double pedals. I'm almost sure that single.

I've never seen him with it. It's menacing. When that bass drum, that's the thing is. It really is. And I mean, obviously, intentionally, and the mix of it is, I think if you took away just the bass drum, which we probably could. Maybe we'll do that in the bonus episode.

But I mean, it's like that would be, like just what Glasper is playing and how Casey's doing the vocoder, it's so like poignant and sweet and kind of like, you know, just ethereal. But that bass drum just makes it like menacing. And like you say, Rob, I always thought this was weird at the end of the album.

It's one of my favorite tracks on here. It's one of the better tracks on here. Yeah. But I think to end it, there's definitely like a statement and maybe this thing of like a jazz musician even though this is definitely i wouldn't say this is a jazz record um if you had to classify it you love classifications don't you that's one of my favorite things i love genre but that it's that's kind of a jazz like in jazz we don't worry as much about like the first side and the second side of what what's

the single going to be but this is like there's several singles on this and like that but i mean to put this at the end is definitely a statement yeah i wonder i wonder about that if it's like you know there's we mentioned that he's steeped in radio head and it's almost a radio head move

to put this last anti-climics you know like this sort of like the darkest track on the album and just like I mean I guess if it were a little bit more spacey

it would be kind of more of a radio head move but it is a little more spacey than some of the other stuff it's not as like you said it's not as beautiful well maybe it's like white radio is actually

taking back oh maybe he's making a statement white radio was coming for you. Yeah, the kick drum is crazy. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah.

We should talk about Chris Dave eventually, but I do want to go into the song AfroBlue itself. So it's by Cuban musician Mongo Santa Maria, written in 1959, which is interesting. Lyrics by Oscar Brown. Oh, this is the original? This is the original. This is great. Cal Jeter.

Yeah. So that's the original. I think most hardcore jazz fans probably know it more from this. It's John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones live. One of the most out-of-tune pianos, killing-ass solos right here. I mean, not one note on that damn piano's in tune, and McCoy is just, that's a killing soul. That's a killing soul. Live at Birdland. Shout out to the Birdland Management for not tuning the piano.

Damn. Sorry. There's been a ton of, you mentioned the lyrics by Oscar Brown, written not too long after the tune itself was written. And this is a great version from Friend of the show, Diane Reeves. Oh, yeah. You ever play that one, Peter? Yeah, a couple times. So that leads us to where

Robert Glasper has some, I mean, like all great jazz musicians, like you investigate a lot of times the tunes that you're going to add to your repertoire, the different versions. I'm sure he grew up listening to several of these versions. There's a great D.D. Bridgewater version from the 70s as well.

Roberta Flack on first take. He's a great version. And so that takes us to him. I mean, this is like a straight-up jazz standard. For sure, that's what I'm saying. Of all the songs on this album, originals or covers, this is like in the real book.

Yeah, yeah. This was like an instant jazz standard from 1959. So here's the version that we're talking about today. Oh, 1959. So I'm saying. The version from Black Radio, 2012. The crest. The crest.

Oh, should we listen to the bridge? Yeah, please. Just got to listen. That's a I mean, Unbelievable Slap away To songs

And do they play Um Dish on delight That's a Robbie moo I mean Unbelievable Yeah

So great Arrangement Great You know This is What's unusual About this Is the element

That isn't there Like there's So many elements From the The flute Different line But like The sound

Of like the timbre of that. But the main thing is like almost all of the three is gone and it's replaced by this groove from, you know, Chris Dave and really everybody, Derek Hodge, I mean, they're all killing it on here.

But it's pretty... All of the like the... Yeah, it's not in three anymore. It's... It's... Wait, it's... Play it again. It's in four, right? Um... Da, do...

Do you... Yeah. Yeah, it's in four. But then he throws in a little bit of like like you said when he crashed and he does it, I don't know if it's every four bars or every eight bars. Dang, dang. And that's really going back to that New Orleans group,

what they call the Big Four, when you're coming through there. So there's some cool stuff with that. He's got some incredible bass drum patterns that are not nearly as menacing as the Nirvana tune for sure. Yeah, so the original and how all of the ranges we've heard so far would be like the Elvin drum patterns.

Yeah. Dang, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And not just that, the harmony is different, too. You know, he puts incredible, we might even say glassper-ish. Glasper-esque. Glaspere. Glass-eper. Glass-bee. Glass-by.

Yeah. Don't worry, Rob-v-do. We're going to edit all this part out. Oh, yeah, this is great. Incredible. I can't do this stuff, so I'm living vicariously through y'all. Incredible re-harm. But I wonder if we could. spend just a couple minutes on Erica Badu.

Yeah. And how seamlessly she just like slips into this song. Yeah. Like we said, this is a classic jazz standard. And she crushes. Yeah, you were talking about how some people might have heard it as an Erica Badu song. It definitely would fit on an Erica Badu album. It's definitely consonant with what she was doing.

I think her first record, Baduism, I think it was 1997. Yeah. And she's sort of introduced to the world as Neo Soul. Yeah. You know, and that's her manager's coinage. Like, her manager, I forget his name, but he sort of brings Erica Badu and DeAngelo into the conversation at the same time and sort of brands them, markets them as Neo Soul. And that's, I think, useful to both, you know, Erica and DeAngelo initially, but then they're going to spend the rest of their careers pushing against that. Yeah.

Right? It's very clear from the onset that Erica Badu. will not be satisfied with being pigeonholed as one thing. You know, I think she puts out a live album the same year. You know, she puts out two albums in 1997. Incredible live album where she's already, it's incredible. Amazing. Tyrone on that.

It's incredible. Like one of the best live performers of all time for me, honestly. And so her career, I was looking, you know, she puts out a record intermittently, you know, it's four or five years at this point between records, you know, She had put out a record in 2010 called New America Part 2, Return of the Inc, and that had some big hits on it. The song Windows Seat was a big hit.

You know, she's very much in the conversation, but she's known as, you know, a genre disruptor, as someone, you know, who's a one-of-one, you know, who makes whatever kind of music she makes with whoever she wants to make it with, you know, who experiments, you know, who will move into rock, you know, R&B, jazz, whatever she wants to do, she's going to do it. I think there's something to the fact that she was

introduced to the world as a very specific new genre that really helped her at the onset, but it also helped her giving her something to reject tacitly for the rest of her career. I'm going to do whatever I want, including this. And that's why Afro-Blue, she sounds so natural doing it. And again, it would fit perfectly

on any of her own records. Yeah, and I think what's interesting is at this, by this point, so this is 2012 and like you're talking about 97 the kind of light, late 90s, you know, electric lady, so querians, that whole period that she was so involved with DeAngelo, you know,

Jay Dilla, we gotta talk about Dilla. Dilla's coming. Also Roy Hargrove connection. Roy Hargrove and Roy and Erica Badu, I believe, went to, I know they went to the same high school and I think they were there at the same time. You know, Nora Jones, a bunch of great musicians around that time.

But this idea of as you said, I didn't know that about her manager with the coin of the term, Neil's soul. It makes sense though. It's always the manager. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also like, it's the music and the aesthetic. There was definitely an anti, not anti-R-NB, but like, this is not the R&B

of the 90s. You know what I mean? It's not Jodice. Right. It's not Jodice. Even though I'm looking forward to our Jodicy episodes sometimes soon, please. And, like, you know, singers, like great singers, like Whitney Houston and stuff that obviously it's been around since the 80s. But like that, this is a new kind of a thing. And I remember when Eric, when I first heard about her, like mid-90s.

And it might have been from Roy, actually, now that I'm remembering. But I remember him talking about her. But somebody else was like, they almost were saying like, she's the new Billy Holiday. That might have come from his manager too. That's what everyone said. Yeah. And I remember when I first heard her, I was like, yeah. And I was kind of like, because I was more like conservative jazzer at that time.

I'm like, that's not Billy Holiday, you know, whatever. But I was also like, but damn, she's good. But it was something else. I think it was useful having that term or something to separate it out from because it was almost like the aesthetic and the sound. It was closer to what a lot of hip-hop was doing at that time, especially like Tri-Core Quest, De LaSole maybe,

that kind of sound and aesthetic, which ultimately led up to something that would make some connections with 2012's Afro-Blue for sure. I mean, I don't mean to get back on my soapbox about genres again, but they're always, you know, descriptive and musicians as they're making stuff, as they're melting into each other,

as they're sort of stirring the pot of all the music that they've ingested from their childhood on, don't give a shit about a genre and aren't playing in a genre. And especially the greats are being, like, the great thing about Erica Badu is she's the most her that she could be. Like, it's

so original and she's so perfectly comfortable in her body, in her skin, in her sound, in her intellect. And, you, you can feel it as an audience member. You just feel taken care of into this person's whole world. And same thing with Robert Glasper.

You feel like on Black Radio, like I am visiting this person's soul. You know what I mean? Like I'm part of this person's world for a second. And that's the most beautiful art that can be made. And I think oftentimes we try to put categories on things to try to make sense of them later, but it's not helpful if you're making it.

You know what I mean? Off my soapbox. Right. That's it. I mean, I agree. 72%. I know. So there you go. It's up from 65, so I'll take it. Cool. All right. So what else do we want to look at in terms of,

can we just talk about Casey Benjamin for just a second? Oh, man. You know, incredible all over this record. I know, RIP, we lost him way, way, way too early. I believe he was about the same age as Glasper. Incredible spirit. Yeah. Incredible human being. Incredible. Like, for those that didn't know him, and a lot of people didn't know him, He's from New York. He's from Queens. One of the sweetest, smartest, just...

I got a chance... I didn't know him well, but I got a chance to teach with him for two weeks, just a couple years before he passed, just a few years ago, with the Betty Carter Institute of the Kennedy Center for two weeks, but it was a very intense experience because we were all, you know, Jason Moran,

we were all there together. But he was very influenced by Betty Carter because he came up in the very first program. He's got a lot of incredible jazz street-cred, jazz police cred jazz intelligenceia but you know he's just he's just one of those New Yorkers that just has that advantage of coming up

at a time with so much music not just on the radio not just on records but in the streets and in the city you know he really is just an incredible guy and I think his this record without him although I think for most people that kind of come to it through the hits and stuff might think of it as kind of window dressing

and accoutrements I don't think this record is what it is and the experiment isn't without Casey Yeah, experiment with Casey, especially live too. Yeah. Unbelievable live. It's a failed experiment without him. I don't put that, but he's magical. He's magical on stage, and he's magical all of this record.

I'm wondering, too, if maybe we can spend a couple minutes talking about Jay Dilla, who's not on this album, but is on this album in a lot of ways. There's so many records that he's not on, but he's on. Yeah. One of the most copied artists, one of the most original sounds of the past 40 years, probably. Yeah. Yeah, Rob, what's your? relationship with the Dilla Beat like as a fan?

I have here this, the great book, Dan Charnas wrote, it's called Dilla Time. It's sort of a biography of J. Dillet. But also it gets into the musical logical aspect. Like there are actually like graphs in this book that try and explain what the Dilla beat is and what it means for a beat to be quantized. Yeah. Is that the word versus not quantized? It's a dirty word.

Yes. It's a word. It feels like it's the way Jay Della plays it, it feels creates it. It feels like it's off. The rhythm feels a little unsteady. It feels human. And

that became his signature and you're absolutely right. This book just talks about how all the music, hip hop for the next 20 years since he first came up. First with Slum Village in Detroit, he started working with a tribe called Quest.

he started working with d'angelo you know as as he becomes you know one of the real forces in in pushing hip-hop forward you know all rap music for the last 20 years to some degree you know sounds a little like him you know if only in spirit in the sense of freedom in the sense of just like fucking with things yeah you know and making it your own i think there are people like that who can inspire you even if they don't do what you do but they see you like you were saying with with Erica Badu, just so herself and so comfortable in herself and just, you know, undaunted, you know, by any expectations of her. I think that is a huge effect on you, you know, even if you're not trying to sound like that person just to see that somebody can be that way.

Yes, absolutely. This is a beat that Robert Glasper has talked about as being influential. This is from a Busta Rhymes album, 1996, I think, The Coming. This is still shining. and this is a Jake Dilla. But you can hear this this sort of wobble in the high hat between the high hat and the kick and the snare.

It's not quantized. Oftentimes he would play live. It's so good. And I mean, if you go back into this. And when stuff comes out with Dilla, too, I've always like the things that aren't there, like when he omits a beat or pulls the basterm out or the snare or something,

it's so, like, for the architecture of the groove. So important. But you can hear it directly. If you listen to what Chris Day Dave is playing. It sounds like he has a tambourine on the high head. There's that back king.

That's a big four. And I mean, if you're going to do a Dilla beat, so drummer Chris Dave, who's on Black Radio and has been a part of, I think, Robert Glasper's biggest successful recordings and bands, is the person for it.

Is like the greatest embodiment, human embodiment, of what J. Dilla, I think, could do. in the studio, Chris Dave can just do so seamlessly live. And it's his own thing, too. It's not just like a Dilla ripoff.

Like, he's an insanely creative musician, an incredible artist in his own right. And super influential on this generation. Another Houston guy. Hugely... Is that right? Yeah, he's from Houston, too, I think. Hugely influential on drummers. of this generation,

maybe more so than any... I mean, we think about, like, jazz drummers and, you know, like Brian Blade, Greg Hutchinson, you know... 100%. And then go back, you know, Tony Williams and course. But, I mean, Chris Dave, in terms of actual things that people play,

huge. Every older millennial and Gen Z drummer has a Chris Dave beat in their pocket. Yeah, that's the exact generation where it's... Yeah. Yeah. So here's a little bit of Chris Dave solo here from Afro Blue.

Throw a little Derek Hodge in there. Is this from the outro? Because the outro is my favorite part of this song. No, this is the first verse that we're listening to. Oh, okay. All right. Stolen stems. Adam snuck into this.

I was going to ask how you get this stuff if it's, if it is contraband. It's good. Contraband. Let's go to the outro a little bit. Behind it. Yeah. And Erica, the outro is really beautiful. It's like 90 seconds of.

Yeah, the outro's almost like a whole other, you know. Yeah. There's a couple tracks. I think the nirvana too It's got like a big extended You know out You know vamp It's really like a vamp right

While we're on some stems I just want to listen to a little bit of Miss Badu Yeah Dream of the land My soul is from I hear a head Stroke on the drum

Isn't that great Yeah And I mean like this This is the, you know, we talk about what's interesting. You play the John Coltrane coming in with the melody that live at Birdland, man, bone dry. Nothing on the saxophone. Yeah. And then, like, for people that are always like, what do you mean effects or EQ?

That's dry, especially the saxophone, right? Yeah. That's got a thick red theater curtain behind it 100%. Yeah, exactly. But the Erica Badu has a lot of verb, a lot of, I don't think there's any layering on there. It's just a lot of effects. So that's kind of where that comes. You can hear that when you hear it or sing.

this is an incredibly engineered record like the production on this record is I think we're always like that's such a big part of the success I think of this track for sure Yeah and the influence of this track especially You know we're just talking about the Jay Dillabees And how influential they are

But I think for every Like I said every musician of a certain age They can pull out this groove This is a fundamental groove of a generation And I think black radio is a big part of that For sure Yeah Rob, any closing thoughts?

Is this your favorite song on this record? Is Afro Blue my favorite song on this record? Oh, he's pushing this into some ringer catacars here. I like it. I like it. I like it. Is this a ringer move? I guess it is.

What's the apex mound? Okay, good. Let's mess it up. Let's go there. They won't let me on the rewatchables either. I think this is the best track on this album. Okay. This is a part of every playlist that's anywhere near,

this sort of era, this Afro-blue makes it on there for me because I think it's just like so, it so captures the moment of the early 2010s and this time. Yeah, I think it's great. I would say if I had to the best track, my favorite, the Layla Hathaway, Charday, that's after this. That's what I was going to say. That's kind of like, I love that track. Say Charday. Shade.

Charday, Shade. Shade. Charday is a. The Charday is a. The Charday. alcoholic beverage. Oh, Chardonnay. Chardonnay, yeah.

Shardinna. Here's another question. Cheres today, exactly. I've blanked on that. Is this your favorite Robert Glasper album? I love, I like this record. Is this my favorite?

What was the first record with the main voyage? Moods, that's a great one. Oh, that was his second, actually. Wasn't that? Was that his first? I think Mood was first. That was first.

Okay. But I also like the third, I don't remember as well, Black Radio 2. Black Radio 3, the last one. Black Radio 3 is a banging. To me, like, that would be a close second

to this one in terms of, but this is great. I mean, this is classic, like this is the kind of thing that an artist like Glasper, I think, can like really, not only hang their hat on,

but also become very bitter and a drunkard later in life to be like, I never got back to that level, you know what I mean? Which is a great thing. I mean, like, How many of us get to say that?

Like, that's such a cool. I'm going to totally tease him next time I see him. Actually, I have, hopefully he doesn't hear this part because I want it to be, I have this plan. No, he's not listening. I want to do an interview with Glasper where I'm just like, like just teasing him on everything. I was like, so Black Radio 1 was great. That was really creative. So I decided to recreate it.

I like the next title, Black Radio 2. Great. Then you wanted to do it again. Black Radio 3. I see where you're going with this. Listen, man. If it works, it works. You need the fast and the furious, like two black, two radio.

Two black radio three, colon, Tokyo drift, etc. I do want to give... Colin the 2030s. I do want to give a shout out to the three albums sort of the lead up to this that you can hear ramping up a little bit, which is canvas in my element and double booked. Double booked. The blue note. That's a killing record.

The blue note albums, the string of blue notes that... That's what I was talking about to this are all so killing. So, so good and definitely worth checking out as you're checking out Black Radio. I really dig in my element. That's the third one. I think it's from 2007. That's the one with the Maiden Voyage,

everything in its right place. That's right. It also has a track called Jay Dillelood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I think Jay Dilla actually appears like a voice mail or an answering machine or whatever was the technology at the time. This is where I think the Dilla really starts

to creep in for him. I think the J.Dillah really starts, The Dilloo track is like a bunch of different Dilla beats. The one I pulled out immediately was stakes is high the De La Sol song. But like this is a really cool record for me. And going all the way back to like Brad Meldow or whatever, like I think in my element is a record that can get you from being a radio head fan to being a jazz fan or vice versa.

It's a great call. That will get you from one place to the other. Great, great call. I know you can put it down, boy. Jay Dilloward. Jay Dilloo. You know what I mean? So, why don't you do that, man?

Play a little joint on your album, but it with the trio. All right, hit me back. Let me know if you did it. All right. I mean, I come on. That's still Detroit, right?

When the legend himself is, and I was just looking, I couldn't remember, Jay Dilla passed in 2006. Yeah. You know, Jay Dilla was, and so this was right after. You know, this is also,

functions as a tribute, as a eulogy, and as a sort of, not explicitly, but sort of carrying on the legacy, you know, as Robert Glassware has gone on to do. It's just a really lovely thing. Yeah. Well, guys, this has been a blast. Rob, thank you for joining us today. Yeah. Of course. I'll come back anytime. Yeah, thank you. Let's talk to some Badoo next time. When you were saying we're collaborating with Rob all this episode, I was excited, so this was a different Rob than I was expecting. But I'm, this turned out great,

this turned out great. The inferior, the inferior, Rob, we were born the same year. And that's, we're named Rob, and that's about where it stops the connections between us,

unfortunately. Oh, man. Great stuff. Thank you, Rob. Until next time, you'll hear them.