Code Derivation

Depending on who you ask—or when it was that they became acquainted with his work—Robert Glasper is either a prodigious jazz pianist who made good on the potential he displayed as a college freshman touring with celebrated composer Roy Hargrove, or a devout hip-hop head whose weapon of choice just happens to be the piano. In his second project of 2024, the Apple Music exclusive *Code Derivation*, he delivers the glutton’s rejoinder: Why not both? Glasper, who’s only ever had to focus his efforts on one or the other in the interest of time, made an album that splits the difference between the two, emphasizing their shared genetics. *Code Derivation* is largely made up of two versions of the same tracks—one played live in studio by Glasper’s band and a version “flipped” by a producer of his choosing. “Jazz is literally in the beginning bones of hip-hop,” Glasper says. “That\'s why I even used the word ‘derivation,’ because it’s a derivative of jazz. I’ve played with the masters of both of these genres, so I wanted to do a project where it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to do jazz songs that I wrote with my band—with my friends—and I’m going to get dope producers that are my friends to sample me.” On the band side of things, that includes names like Walter Smith III, Mike Moreno, Kendrick Scott, Keyon Harrold, and Vicente Archer—the majority of whom the pianist has known since long before his turn as a multiple-Grammy-winning artist and composer. “The beginnings of me is not only straight-ahead jazz, but it’s also particular players,” Glasper says. “I went to high school with Walter and Mike Moreno and Kendrick Scott. We literally grew up together and learned how to play jazz together. Keyon, we met in jazz camp in 11th grade.” On the production side, he’s enlisted friends and collaborators like Hi-Tek, Black Milk, Karriem Riggins, Taylor McFerrin, and the one guest Glasper would be hard-pressed to deny as his favorite of the bunch: his son Riley. “When I have guests, it’s always the best of the best,” Glasper says. “That’s my thing. People that I’ve wanted to work with or people that I’m just big fans of and the world are fans of. But at the same time, now that I’ve established myself and I have a certain platform, you’re going to see more and more of me using people \[my fans\] don’t necessarily know as much.” On the MC front, Glasper’s called on less established acts like Beaumont, Texas-hailing Jamari (a frequent collaborator of his son), Minneapolis’ MMYYKK, and Brooklyn-born Oswin Benjamin—young rhymers who Glasper says became the project’s pièce de résistance. “I almost didn’t have any guests at all, really,” he says. “I was just like, it could be the jazz tune and then the beats and that’s it. But then, at the last minute, I was like, ‘I could use some rap on here. I think that’ll really bring \[us\] to the hip-hop shit.’” The project is indeed delightfully guest-heavy, assembling the perfect collective of contributors to help convey a personal investment in two of Black music’s most revered genres. Which, to let Glasper tell it, wasn’t very much work at all. “I trusted who I picked,” he says. “The beauty of my collaboration is that I don’t try to take over and overproduce. The fact that I picked you *is* the production. I know what you’re going to do and I know it’s going to be dope.”