About Robert Glasper
Robert Andre Glasper is an American pianist, record producer, songwriter, and musical arranger. His music embodies numerous musical genres, primarily centered around jazz. Glasper has won five Grammy Awards from 11 nominations.
Glasper's breakout album Black Radio peaked at number 15 on the Billboard 200 chart and won the Best R&B Album at 55th Annual Grammy Awards. The following year, he released its sequel, Black Radio 2. In 2015, he played keyboards on Kendrick Lamar's album To Pimp a Butterfly, and appeared on the soundtrack for the 2015 drama film Miles Ahead.
Outside of his own musical work, he has co-written or produced albums for Mac Miller, Anderson .Paak, Banks, Herbie Hancock, Big K.R.I.T., Brittany Howard, Bilal, Denzel Curry, Q-Tip, and Talib Kweli amongst others. 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 documentary, 13th, along with Common and Karriem Riggins. Glasper also composed the score for the documentary film The Apollo, and composed the original score for Issa Rae's The Photograph.
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's earliest musical influence was his mother, Kim Yvette Glasper, who sang jazz and blues professionally. She took her son with her to club dates rather than leave him with babysitters. She was the music director at the East Wind Baptist Church, where Glasper first performed in public. He 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.
Glasper attended Elkins High School in Missouri City, Texas, and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. In tenth grade he performed with the jazz band at Texas Southern University. He was in the second Vail Jazz Workshop in 1997, and went on to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. At the New School, Glasper met neo-soul singer Bilal. They began performing and recording together, which led to associations with a variety of hip hop and R&B artists parallel to Glasper's emerging jazz career.
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