José James: jazz with a hip-hop vibe

Gilles Peterson, a guy who knows something about good music, recently created his own record company: Brownswood Recordings. One of the artists that he first signed was José James, half panamanian half irish, who lives now in Brooklyn and has one of the greatest voices of jazz nowadays. The dreamer, his second album, is one of those records that, after being celebrated by the critics and some of the most recognized jazz musicians, has also achieved an enthusiastic response from the jazz audience. However, The dreamer isn’t quite a pure traditional jazz record, since James added it in an exquisite urban vibe: some hip-hop, R&B and even a little bit of drum ‘n bass. This fusion has turned out to be outstanding. That’s why I now invite you all to listen to his extraordinary jazzy hip-hop or hip-hop au jazz. Either way, it’s still great music.

Here is the video for the first single, Park bench people