The two went on to improvise together at Comess's home and produced a demo that was later heard by Interscope Records, who signed Bilal to a record contract. At one such event, he met Aaron Comess, a musician from the pop-rock band Spin Doctors. Concurrently, Bilal frequented jam sessions set up by New School professors and students. With Glasper, he frequented a number of jazz clubs in the city and eventually the Wetlands Preserve nightclub, where he connected with musicians of the Soulquarians collective: the Roots, Common, Erykah Badu, and Mos Def. īilal graduated from the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and then attended New York City's The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, where he met the pianist Robert Glasper on his first day. I was a 13-year-old – I made up my mind then that I wanted to be in music some kind of way. I got to see Terrence Blanchard, Kenny Kirkland, Jeff 'Tain' Watts. I liked the way the cats dressed, the way they talked. I remember sitting back there watching all of these different bands who really intrigued me a lot. They had a curtain they could put over me just in case the police came", he recalls to Beat magazine: "I used to have to sit in the back where the cigarette machine was. As a formative experience, he cites his father taking him to the city's jazz clubs. When he was 11 he became choir director at his mother's church, and at 14 he formed a group and performed gigs at the Blue Moon Cafe in Philadelphia. He grew up in a religiously mixed household, his mother being Christian and his father Muslim. The Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Bilal's alma materīilal was born Bilal Sayeed Oliver in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The resulting three-track EP was released digitally the following month, with revenues of its sale and accompanying donations given to the participating artists, many of whom had been struggling financially due to the pandemic. In August 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Bilal wrote and recorded his first EP, Voyage-19, over the course of three days and in collaboration with various musicians in remote experimental sessions, which were streamed live on YouTube. He has been well received, both nationally and internationally, with an extensive list of collaborations including Kendrick Lamar, Common, Erykah Badu, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Guru, Kimbra, J Dilla, Robert Glasper, and The Roots. He was a member of the Soulquarians, an experimental black music collective active from the late 1990s to early 2000s. He has commercially released four albums to critical success, while his unreleased but widely leaked second album Love for Sale also found wide acclaim among critics and listeners. Starting out at a major label, Bilal debuted with his popular R&B single " Soul Sista" in 2000, but turned to playing jazz venues and recording more progressive soul music in subsequent years. He is an independent artist, noted for his wide vocal range, work across multiple genres, and intense live performances. Bilal Sayeed Oliver (born August 23, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer.
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