Jose James – Dark Side of the Sun
José James has often been called a “jazz singer for the hip hop generation,” since he came to jazz through tracing hip hop samples back to their original sources. Over the course of twelve records, he’s also incorporated R&B, soul, rock, funk, and Latin music into his songs. And while he’s mostly sung his own music over the years, he has occasionally covered songs by some of his favorite artists: Bill Withers, Gil Scott-Heron, Erykah Badu and Billie Holiday.Last year James put out an album called 1978, which sees him looking back, past hip hop, to the soul music of the 70s. This song is “Dark Side of the Sun.”
That’s Jose James with Dark Side of the Sun. He’s playing tonight thru Thursday night at the Blue Note.