Robert Glasper is holding space for artistic exploration

Glasper's monster work ethic is matched only by his boundless energy. So where better then, to host a week of creativity than an entire takeover of Camden’s iconic KOKO theatre and adjoining building?

Post-restoration, KOKO’s newly transformed creative hub sprawls across four floors and sixteen uniquely designed spaces for multi-platform immersion. Stepping into the venue feels like entering an opulent, charming wonderland, conjoining at an apex where music, culture, and creativity connect. The week’s multi-sensory celebrations combine performance, culinary experiences, and late-night jam sessions together in one place; aptly rebranded as The House of Glasper.

As we sit down in the luxurious penthouse suite, naturally equipped with a log burning fireplace, an enviable record collection, a gigantic pool table and abstract squiggles strung along the walls Glasper reflects on his previous visits to the capital: “I love London, it’s my favourite place to play outside of the United States - I actually like it better than the United States,” he shares. “London has always shown me love.”

Reflecting on his early days cutting his teeth releasing ‘straight ahead’ Jazz, he recalls tastemaker Gilles Peterson championing his demo Mood on his radio show. “Gilles was the first to fly me out with my trio, with Dwele and Jazmine Sullivan,” he says, “The first time he brought me here was to play the Barbican Centre for his Worldwide Festival in 2002. People in London have been messing with me for a long time.”

Last time out, he tore up the pristine Hackney Church in promotion of his stellar Black Radio III album. As fate would have it, that date was originally meant to be at KOKO before the notorious fire set the venue ablaze. His love affair with London has only strengthened over two decades, and this latest trip might be his most indulgent yet.

The House of Glasper is an artistic exploration perfectly suited to Glasper’s approach to collaboration. Jam sessions at Ellen’s Jazz Club spotlight talents of Britain’s best; multi-instrumentalist David Mrakpor and powerhouse vocalist Vula lead the post-show antics, while an intimate dinner party (a direct nod to his supergroup alongside Terrace Martin, Kamasi Washington and Ninth Wonder) transforms the venue's Stage Kitchen into a hub of conversation and connection.

“I come here so often, I’ve cultivated such a big family of people that I know and trust, so it makes sense that I do something like a residency here,” he says.

The dinner exquisitely merges together his Houston roots and his love for travel. Tables are adorned with Sea Trout Pastrami, fresh Winter Greens, 14-hour blackened Beef Brisket slow-roasted in cognac, paired with a rich, four-cheese mac and cheese topped with crispy shallots. The trick, as he says, is to chop it all up and mix it all together in true Texan style, “That’s my culture - Soul Food.”

As guests sip on the smoky-sweet 59South cocktail - a nod to the Highway that runs through Texas - the atmosphere is homely, convivial, relaxed; just as he intended, “Everybody’s cool, easy going, open-minded,” he remarks, “When people are cool around me, it makes me be cool too.”

Not that he needs it mind you. Rocking up to a Robert Glasper show, it’s evident that the man oozes sub-zero chic. Opening both shows by riffing on Radiohead’s “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box,” seamlessly transforming it into a freestyle interpolating J Dilla’s “Ice,” quipping, “It's plain to see, you can't change me / 'Cause I'ma be this n**** with ice.”

Jokingly, he encourages “all the white folk” to sing along. As ever, his tongue-in-cheek demeanour and experimental technique are emblematic of his style, and a reminder why so many of the R&B, Soul, Jazz and Hip-Hop world so often call upon his services.

“That’s who I am. I’m the show, but I’m also a jam session person, I’m a foodie, I’m the drink, I’m all those things,” he says, “The fact that this is in one place is so perfect. I didn't know it had this many rooms!”

From the Jazz chin-strokers, to the old school Hip-Hop heads, to newcomers alike, he acknowledges that his crowds are often “random as hell,” but unified by sound, they all sway in admiration to his hypnotic twinklings. “With instrumental music, everybody speaks the same language,” he comments, a challenge his peers in the R&B world often struggle with in non-English speaking countries.

“It's so diverse. You have your group that are musicians, so when we play some shit music wise that might be like, ‘Ooo!’ for the musicians, that’s cool,” he laughs, “But then there are some people who just love Black Radio songs.”

Later in the set a seemingly unusual detour into Cyndi Lauper’s "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" sees Glasper hit the vocals himself. Quizzing him on that moment, he notes that it originally started out as a joke, and admits to loving “some of the whitest songs ever.”

“I used to do 'Time After Time' and somehow her people found out,” he shares. Shortly later, he was invited to join Lauper on stage at New York’s Beacon Theatre for a fundraiser for homeless members of the LGBTQ community. He recalls trembling with fear, something he’d only ever experienced twice before — when meeting his musical heroes Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock for the first time.

"I was watching her and her band play the rehearsal," he explains, "I don’t usually get nervous, but I was so nervous. Then, it got even more [intense] when the band just got up and walked away." The realisation hit him, this wasn’t going to be a full-band performance. “She said, ‘It’s gonna to be a duo —just me and you.’ I thought, wow, okay. One song. Just the two of us."

As the two performed the stripped-back arrangement, it became a career defining moment. "When we finished, I looked up and saw her crying. Her whole team was crying," he tells me. "They all came up to me, saying, ‘We’ve been with Cyndi for 40 years, some of us even longer, and we’ve heard this song a million times. But we’ve never heard it like that!’”

As with any Robert Glasper performance, the tributes come through thick and fast. The all-too-familiar sprinklings of J DIlla are accented throughout, brought to the fore during “Dillalude #2" to the backdrop of a glittering disco ball.

Talking on Dilla’s (real name James Yancey) influence we come to chat about that song being a gateway into Glasper’s music. It’s an explorative medley of Dilla’s greatest beats, and so often a staple in his countless live performances. Handing over a copy of the Black Radio Remixed EP he exclaims, “Oh shit. I’ve never seen that before!”

He ruminates on his days they spent together in Detroit alongside singer Bilal in the late 90’s when Glasper was a sophomore, “I begged Bilal to take me,” he says. “[Dilla] was a record fiend, an encyclopedia. He knew where everything was.”

The trio would spend hours on end jamming, creating beats, experimenting with rhythms, exploring different flows on an assortment of keyboards, microphones and famously, Dilla’s Akai MPC. “I learned so much from watching him work,” he reflects.

They would ride around in Yancey’s Range Rover, testing out unmixed scratch ideas, handing them out to club DJ’s and trialling them out in strip clubs around the city. A formative time in his career, and one which taught him a new approach to production - and one which differed at the time, from Hip-Hop’s norm.

"Illmatic changed the game," Glasper contends. "It was the first major [Hip-Hop] album to have a different producer on every track.” Big releases before that time (think Erik B. & Rakim’s Paid in Full, Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle) all had one dedicated producer; the theory being the artist and producer would create a unified world in which the audience could immerse themselves entirely in.

Glasper acknowledges the brilliance of Nas’ debut, but admits a preference for albums with a single producer at the helm. “It’s more cohesive, it tells a story. But now it’s all about who’s hot and who can make the biggest single,” he professes.

We come to talk about the landscape of Hip-Hop today and the role of the producer in the streaming era. “Everything’s about playlisting now,” he explains, lamenting how the art of the album often takes a backseat to the chase for viral success. “If you have an album full of hot producers, it’ll do better than an album full of big-name features,” he says.

His gripe with the current model is stark; playlist culture prioritises singles over complete bodies of work, marking a shift in the industry’s focus on viral moments over storytelling. “Producers like Metro Boomin hold so much weight now - rightly so. But just having a name attached to your project makes it hot."

“All my favorite albums have one producer,” he says, noting how the multi-producer approach in Hip-Hop differs vastly from other genres. Mentor and hero Quincy Jones is a case in point. “That's what Black Radio is - it’s literally The Dude and Q’s Jook Joint. That's where I got the idea from,” he confesses. “As a producer you can put an album out with all these musicians at your expense and make a great record.” Contemplating what made Jones so unique, he ponders, “Sometimes you might have all the ingredients, but most people don't know how to cook.”

For Glasper, with a cabinet brimming full guest stars at his disposal, the now-famous Black Radio trilogy is a who’s-who of Jazz, Hip-Hop, and R&B. And while that tried and tested approach certainly paid dividends, his recent releases followed a new strategy.

Over the past twelve months, he released four albums, all exclusively with Apple Music; each exploring new avenues. “I'm pretty much a one album every two years kinda person,” he explains, “But that was the deal I made with Apple, to give them four exclusive projects that live only on Apple for a year.”

The four projects (In December, Let Go, (GRAMMY nominated-) Code Derivation, and Keys to the City: Volume I) renewed a focus that hadn’t been there before, each with distinct themes and tropes.

Driven in part by Ebro Darden, Apple’s Hip-Hop and R&B head, the company’s motivation was clear; they wanted Glasper to be the face of their jazz lane. “He's always been supportive of all my records, so it made me just focus. It worked a different muscle,” he chuckles, “They asked me to do a Christmas album, and I was like ‘Ummmm… no! But that massaged a different muscle.”

The album in question, In December (now available on all DSPs) is a festive exploration with an A-list series of contributors. The first voice on the record is that of Wicked actress Cynthia Erivo, whom Glasper brings out during the second KOKO gig. Earth-shattering in her delivery, she admits to only knowing three words of the song, but as all Jazz musicians know all too well, improvisation is the mother of invention. So in true Davis or Coltrane-esque style, Erivo wistfully whistles her way through their stunning collaboration “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Carol Of The Bells.”

Taking a more meditative approach, Let Go is a soothing, almost spiritual collection designed for moments of focus and calm. “People have always said my music helps them study or get things done,” Glasper says, “So I created something for that vibe.” Steering firmly clear of calling it a meditation album though, he laughs, “I don’t want the meditation people getting mad at me because I'm not using the right terminology! All I'm doing is making calm music.”

Elsewhere, Keys to the City: Vol I is a compilation of live recordings from his celebrated Robtober series at the Blue Note Jazz Club, and Code Derivation released in August is a concept album exploring the deep intersection of Jazz and Hip-Hop on a “more obvious surface level.”

Unique in its format, each track has two versions, one purely Jazz and the other flipped by a producer of his choosing. The innovative approach earnt him yet another Grammy nomination, this time for Best Alternative Jazz Album. Naturally the conversation leans towards the others in the category. He’s in good company, sitting alongside friends and collaborators Meshell Ndegeocello, Keyon Harrold and André 3000.

Speaking on the reception to André's New Blue Sun album, “I know people have their thoughts on that, but for artistic purposes, it opens up the door. It opens up the door for that possibility of people that are doing things that aren’t just fucking Taylor Swift shit,” he says, “It's good for the art.”

Glasper’s recent Black Radio Experience at the Blue Note Jazz Festival in Napa Valley earlier this year saw a rare appearance from the former Outkast rapper. “He asked if he could play three times! We had him in the wine cave, the lights were a certain way, and it just made the music make sense,” he shares, “When you try to put that music outside in a festival it doesn’t translate.”

Although they didn’t hit the studio together, he amps up talk of a future collaboration, flute included of course. “It's such a motherland sound to me. There's this emotional attachment I feel the flute has with Africa,” he says “He's arguably the greatest MC on Earth and he does not want to rap. He really wants to play the fucking flute!”

The House of Glasper caps a remarkable year for the virtuoso and a testament to his ability as one of the most innovative musicians of our time. His ability to merge the modest with the soulful, the experimental with the familiar, and the humorous with the profound linger long after the final note.

His admiration for his peers is reciprocated as evidenced by the week’s flurry of guests. Common, Wyclef Jean, Erivo and Mike Phillips all thank Glasper for the opportunity and hospitality with palpable gratitude. Having worked with practically everyone in the industry, who is left on his hit list? “Busta Rhymes, Thom Yorke and Bjork,” he replies. Providing his ‘days off’ allow, that will surely only be a matter of time.