[Alt Jazz] Bilal [USA]

[Alt Jazz] comes in strong with another instalment, this time announcing Grammy Award-winning artist Bilal, coming to Control on July 7, in partnership with Black Rhino Radio. 

Bilal is one of the voices that define the blend of jazz, hip-hop and neo-soul. More than twenty years into his storied career, the singer, songwriter and producer born Bilal Sayeed Oliver—who, after decades of accolades and A-list collaborations with likes of Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Erykah Badu, Clipse, and so many more—is as locked in as ever. 

Bilal has always felt that the term neo-soul was reductive—that the music he and his Soulquarian compatriots were creating was, in fact, a logical extension of jazz. Appropriately, the performances on Live at Glasshaus surge with jazz’s improvisatory verve and sense of possibility. “In performing my music, I’m used to big ensembles,” says Bilal, “and this performance stripped it all down. I felt like a trumpet player on some Miles Davis shit. With the jazz sensibility, it allows you to be agile about taking direction on the spot. When I lay out, somebody else steps up, and I fill in from there.”

Bilal is steeped in jazz: As a child, he’d accompany his father to the legendary Philadelphia jazz club Zanzibar Blue and listen in on musicians while hiding in the coat check. As Bilal recounts: “The jazz inflections in my singing came from the internal holy war in my life—my mom was a Sunday school teacher, and I was in the little kid choir. My dad was Muslim, and he didn’t like that I was in the church choir. So my dad took me to the jazz club because he wanted to culture me to some ‘real’ music.” 

* Children up to 12 years old do not have access to the event.