Robert Glasper, African-American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer
Robert Andre Glasper (born April 6, 1978) is an American pianist, record producer, songwriter, and musical arranger with a career that bridges several different musical and artistic genres, mostly centered around jazz. To date, Glasper has won four Grammy Awards and received nine nominations across eight categories.
Glasper's breakout crossover album, Black Radio, won the 2013 Grammy for best R&B album, and following this success he performed on various successful albums, including playing keyboards on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly and winning another Grammy for the track “These Walls”. The ongoing Black Radio series of albums has since become Glasper's calling card, with guests such as Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), Bilal, Ledisi, Lupe Fiasco, Jill Scott, and Erykah Badu. Black Radio was the first album in history to debut in the top 10 of 4 different genre charts simultaneously: Hip Hop R&B, Urban Contemporary, Jazz and Contemporary Jazz. The feat was then repeated by Black Radio 2.
Glasper has toured extensively, drawing a large and loyal following globally. He has also been an Artist in Residence at some of the most prestigious festivals and institutions worldwide, including the London Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall and the Blue Note Jazz Club.
Glasper has written, performed and produced on albums by Mac Miller, Anderson .Paak, Banks, Herbie Hancock, Big K.R.I.T., Brittany Howard, Bilal, Kendrick Lamar, Denzel Curry, Q-Tip, Common and Talib Kweli amongst others. Glasper has also written music successfully for film. He won the 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for his song "A Letter to the Free" featured in Ava DuVernay’s critically hailed documentary, 13th, with Common and Karriem Riggins. Glasper has also scored the Emmy-winning documentary The Apollo, won a Grammy for his soundtrack to Miles Ahead, and composed the original score for Issa Rae’s The Photograph.