THEO CROKER – LIVE IN PARIS EP OUT NOW
THEO CROKER today debuts his LIVE IN PARIS EP. Available everywhere now, the three-track collection includes live versions of “Where Will You Go” from his latest critically-acclaimed album BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST as well as two covers of “Fair Trade” by Drake and “UMI Says” by Mos Def. Recorded in Paris during an international tour in support of BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST, today’s release features Theo on trumpet and providing vocals for “Where Will You Go” and “UMI Says.” Accompanying Live in Paris is a video of Theo performing “Where Will You Go” live in studio – WATCH HERE.
Of the new live tracks, THEO CROKER says, “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. 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.”
THEO CROKER – LIVE IN PARIS EP: LISTEN HERE
TRACKLIST:
1 – “Where Will You Go”
2 – “Umi Says” (Mos Def)
3 – “Fair Trade” (Drake)
ABOUT THEO CROKER
Theo Croker is a storyteller who speaks through his trumpet. A creative who refuses boundaries, the GRAMMY®️ Award-nominated artist, composer, producer, thought leader, and influencer projects his voice through the music. After seven years of sojourn in Shanghai, Croker crash-landed with a simmering original sound on the 2014 Dee Dee Bridgewater-assisted album AfroPhysicist. Following the success of Escape Velocity in 2016, he ascended to a new stratosphere with Star People Nation in 2019. The record garnered a nomination in the category of “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” at the 62nd GRAMMY®️ Awards. It attracted widespread critical acclaim including Stereogum, Paste, and The New York Times who called it “an album that gallivants from swirling, left-field hip-hop beats to propellant swing to entrancing passages of African percussion. Through it all, Croker’s understated trumpet playing holds his small band together with swagger and poise.” Along the way, he also lent his sound to platinum-selling albums by everyone from J. Cole to Ari Lennox while touring his band across the globe many times over. In 2020, he hunkered down at his childhood home in the midst of the global pandemic and wrote his sixth full-length album BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST (Sony Music Masterworks), enlisting a star-studded group of featured artists including Wyclef Jean, Ari Lennox, Gary Bartz, Charlotte Dos Santos, Iman Omari, Malaya, and Kassa Overall across the album’s 13 tracks. Upon release in September 2021, Theo made his late-night TV debut with a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Widespread critical acclaim followed, with The New York Times including the “smoldering neo-jazz collection” as Fall preview pick and CLASH simply declaring the album “a vital experience” and Croker’s “finest moment yet.”
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Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.