Robert Glasper on Vinyl: A Guide to Black Radio and the Trio Years

Robert Glasper was born in Houston on April 5, 1978, and learned harmony in church before he learned it anywhere else. His mother, Kim Yvette Glasper, sang jazz and blues professionally and served as music director at East Wind Baptist Church, where he first played in public. He played services for Baptist, Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist congregations, studied at Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, then went to the New School in New York, where he met a singer named Bilal and never really stopped working with him.

Two careers then ran at once. Glasper toured as a sideman with Christian McBride, Terence Blanchard and Roy Hargrove while sitting in with Bilal, Jill Scott, The Roots and J Dilla, and became music director for Yasiin Bey. He kept two bands to match: the acoustic Robert Glasper Trio, with Vicente Archer on bass and Damion Reid on drums, and the electric Robert Glasper Experiment, with Casey Benjamin on saxophone and vocoder, Derrick Hodge on bass and Chris Dave on drums. In 2009 he stopped choosing between them and made Double-Booked, an album split down the middle, one half for each group.

Black Radio arrived three years later and turned that split into a working method rather than a novelty. It is why Glasper became the standing meeting point between jazz players and the singers and rappers who grew up on jazz records. GOOD TASTE carries six albums under his own name, from the 2005 Blue Note debut through the third Black Radio. Here is the path through them, in order.

Robert Glasper - Canvas

Out in 2005, Canvas was his first record for Blue Note and it still sounds like a thesis statement: nine originals plus Herbie Hancock's Riot, played by Glasper with Vicente Archer and Damion Reid. Mark Turner adds tenor saxophone on two tracks and Bilal sings on two more, which is where neo-soul phrasing starts working its way into the time feel.

• Why it's worth purchasing: his Blue Note debut, and the first outing for the Archer and Reid trio.
• Why it's worth purchasing: Bilal on two tracks, the start of a partnership that runs through the entire catalog.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the acoustic baseline you need before Black Radio reframes it.

Robert Glasper - In My Element

Recorded at Systems Two in Brooklyn in late 2006 and out March 20, 2007, In My Element keeps the same trio and pushes further in both directions at once. J Dillalude folds Dilla's beats into acoustic post-bop, the Maiden Voyage medley slides Hancock into Radiohead's Everything in Its Right Place, and Tribute, written for his mother, closes the record with spoken word from Reverend Joe Ratliff. We carry the Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series pressing.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the strongest of the acoustic trio albums, and the one musicians tend to name first.
• Why it's worth purchasing: J Dillalude and the Maiden Voyage medley, Hancock and Radiohead in a single sitting.
• Why it's worth purchasing: a Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series pressing of a record that spent years out of print.

Robert Glasper - Black Radio

Credited to the Robert Glasper Experiment and released February 28, 2012 on Blue Note, Black Radio put the band behind a rotating cast of singers: Erykah Badu on Afro Blue, Lalah Hathaway on the Sade cover Cherish the Day, plus Bilal, Yasiin Bey, Ledisi, Musiq Soulchild, Meshell Ndegeocello, Chrisette Michele, Lupe Fiasco and KING. Casey Benjamin's vocoder is the signature texture across all of it, and since his death in 2024 the record plays as the clearest case for what he brought to the group. This is the 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, issued in 2022.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the record that reset what a working jazz band could do with singers out front.
• Why it's worth purchasing: Afro Blue, Cherish the Day and a reading of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit on one album.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the expanded anniversary edition rather than a plain reissue of the 2012 sequence.

Robert Glasper - Black Radio 2

Out October 29, 2013 on Blue Note, Black Radio 2 is the songwriting record of the pair. Mark Colenburg takes over the drum chair from Chris Dave, the covers mostly give way to original material, and the guest list widens to Common, Jill Scott, Brandy, Norah Jones, Anthony Hamilton, Faith Evans, Marsha Ambrosius, Dwele, Emeli Sande and Snoop Dogg. The one borrowed tune, Stevie Wonder's Jesus Children, is handled by Lalah Hathaway and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the Experiment writing songs rather than arranging other people's.
• Why it's worth purchasing: a guest list that reaches from Norah Jones to Snoop Dogg without sounding like a compilation.
• Why it's worth purchasing: Mark Colenburg's first album with the band, a noticeably different swing.

Robert Glasper - Fuck Yo Feelings

His first release for Loma Vista, out October 3, 2019 and billed by Glasper himself as a mixtape, Fuck Yo Feelings was cut in two days at Henson Recording Studios with whoever answered his texts. Nineteen tracks, much of it composed on the spot, with Chris Dave and Derrick Hodge holding the floor and Herbie Hancock, Yasiin Bey, Rapsody, Denzel Curry, Bilal, Andra Day, SiR, Terrace Martin and Mick Jenkins passing through.

• Why it's worth purchasing: a two-day studio jam that captures a room full of players inventing in real time.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the widest guest list he has assembled, from Herbie Hancock to Denzel Curry.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the pivot point between the Blue Note years and the Loma Vista era.

Robert Glasper - Black Radio III

Released February 25, 2022 on Loma Vista and credited to Glasper alone rather than the Experiment, Black Radio III was co-produced with Terrace Martin, Bryan-Michael Cox and Jahi Sundance and runs deeper into hip-hop than either predecessor. Q-Tip, Killer Mike, Big K.R.I.T., Posdnuos, Common and D Smoke handle the rapping; Esperanza Spalding, H.E.R., Yebba, Gregory Porter, Ledisi, India.Arie and Jennifer Hudson handle the singing. We carry it in two colors, the indie exclusive chartreuse above and a grape swirl pressing.

• Why it's worth purchasing: the hip-hop heaviest entry in the series, with Q-Tip and Killer Mike on the mic.
• Why it's worth purchasing: the clearest picture of where Glasper's writing went after the Blue Note contract.
• Why it's worth purchasing: two colored pressings to choose from, chartreuse or grape swirl.

If You Like Robert Glasper

• Herbie Hancock: the direct ancestor, and the composer Glasper has covered and played alongside since Canvas.
• Kamasi Washington: the Los Angeles side of the same movement, and his bandmate in Dinner Party.
• Bilal: the voice on Glasper records since the New School, with 1st Born Second as the place to start.
• Erykah Badu: the Afro Blue vocalist and the reference point for almost everything Black Radio does.
• Kiefer: the younger keyboardist working the same seam between jazz piano and beat music.

Where to Go From Here

Everything above sits in Jazz, and the Black Radio run belongs just as much to Neo-Soul and R&B. If you want the lineage, our Herbie Hancock guide covers the pianist whose Riot appears on Canvas, and our Common guide covers his August Greene bandmate. Beyond his own name we also carry Dinner Party and its sequels Dessert and Enigmatic Society, the August Greene album with Common and Karriem Riggins, the Miles Davis project Everything's Beautiful, Bilal's Live at Glasshaus, and the holiday EP In December. Titles we do not stock, if you are filling gaps elsewhere: Mood from 2004, Double-Booked from 2009, Covered from 2015 and ArtScience from 2016. To browse every Robert Glasper title we carry, visit the Robert Glasper collection.