Jazz has been embedded in the beauty of Hip Hop long before A Tribe Called Quest and outfits like Hidden Beach Recordings began flipping R&B and Hip Hop records into smooth, jazz-influenced covers. Grammy-nominated artist Theo Crocker paints the world in his own way with the sounds of Drake and Travis Scott's "Fair Trade" and a classic from Yasiin Bey, in new EP Live in Paris.
Crocker begins his cover of "Umi Says" from Yasiin's classic solo debut album Black On Both Sides by stating, "These are live sessions.". The covers of "Umi Says" and "Fair Trade," taken from the 6 God's Certified Lover Boy are Crocker's first publicly released Hip Hop covers.
“I wanted to highlight what fans can expect to hear from me on tour – how my band and I incorporate elements of my latest studio album into the live show, and how we can take material from any genre to fit into whatever setting we’re playing in,” Crocker said in a statement. “I chose to play some tunes from the hip-hop idiom, bringing them back into the improvisational space. We put an instrumental twist on Drake’s ‘Fair Trade,’ and then with Mos Def’s ‘UMI Says’ I started showing more of my vocals.”
“It’s a song that Mos Def doesn’t perform live, so I wanted to give people a version of it aside from the original that they can rock to. With “Where Will You Go,” ”I wanted to include a song from BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST that people recognize, bridging the gap between my new music and some hip-hop classics.”
The jazz-heavy flips are taken from Crocker's BLK2LIFE - A FUTURE PAST album recorded in Paris.
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