Robert Glasper Experiment - ArtScience
2016
Jazz / Neo-Soul
Blue Note Records
Robert Glasper is a Grammy Award-winning jazz musician and bandleader, and he’s had a pretty tremendous year. He helped curate the soundtrack for Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic, and he continues to forge a unique path through contemporary R&B and neo-soul with his Robert Glasper Experiment project. The two previous albums recorded under this moniker, Black Radio and Black Radio 2, were heavily inspired by hip-hop and modern soul and featured a bevy of guests and featured artists ranging from Yasiin Bey (previously Mos Def), Erykah Badu, and fellow neo-soul acolyte Bilal. ArtScience pivots a bit into modern funk territory as Glasper relies on his own voice, doctored up with a vocoder a la mid-70’s Herbie Hancock, to lead the charge through over an hour’s worth of groovy robot jazz. Glasper’s crossover potential continues to climb, with tracks such as Day to Day and You and Me appealing to modern jazz enthusiasts and contemporary R&B lovers in equal measure. It might be a little overlong and the lack of features results in a less sprawling endeavor than his Black Radio albums, but ArtScience is well worth taking the plunge.
