James Blake is a talented electric music producer and singer-songwriter from London. He has collaborated with famous artists such Bon Iver, RZA and Drake. At one point in his life, Blake was house roommates with Chance The Rapper. His self-titled debut album was released in 2011; he has stormed off to release dozens of successful singles, as well as a few more albums and EPs such as Overgrown (2013). Blake had his first Grammy nomination at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, losing to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

With me personally, what James Blake symbolizes is a departure from the typical 21st century electronic house music; and by that, I mean that he has rotated electronic music, giving it much more emotional depth and musical quality. If you listen to some famous tracks like “Limit to Your Love” and “Wilhelm Scream”, they  are seeping with primarily jazz influenced chord progressions. Being a talented pianist, Blake has admitted that he has looked up to jazz piano legends such as Art Tatum and Erroll Garner.

Tracks like “Air and Lack Thereof” and “CMYK” definitely have an influence of dubstep or a sub-genre of dubstep; these tracks would be pretty suitable for your psychedelic rave. On the other hand, tracks like “Retrograde” have a certain level of lyrical content, conveying a sense of lonely existentialism. As a result, Blake has perfectly married the dubstep and singer-songwriter genres.

And if there is one thing that elevates Blake as a lovely musician, it is his creative ability to revive old songs like “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell and give them a modern-day twist. When I saw Blake at The Neptune in Seattle, the crowd went ecstatic when he concluded the set with “A Case of You”.