Bio:
James Poyser, born January 30, in Sheffield, England is a multi-Grammy winning songwriter, musician and multi-platinum producer.
Poyser has written and produced songs for various legendary and award-winning artists including Erykah Badu, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Lauryn Hill, Common, Anthony Hamilton, D'Angelo, The Roots, and Keyshia Cole.
During his career, Poyser has toured, and played live with such distinctive artists as Jay-Z, The Roots, Erykah Badu, and Aretha Franklin.
An active session musician, he has contributed to the works of Adele, Norah Jones, Eric Clapton, Joss Stone, Ziggy Marley, Macy Gray and Femi Kuti. Poyser received a Grammy for Best R&B Song in 2003 for co-writing Erykah Badu and Common's hit "Love Of My Life."
James was also the executive producer on Badu's highly celebrated albums, Mama's Gun and Worldwide Underground.
A longtime collaborator and member of The Roots, James has joined them on stage, performing live as the houseband for NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Elijah Blake - Shadows and Diamonds
Co-Producer/Co-Writer: "Pinot", “Armegeddon"
Common - Nobodys Smiling
Co-Producer/Co-Writer: “Kingdom”, “Blacq Magic”, “Rewind Dat”
Jhene Aiko - Souled Out
Co-Producer/Co-Writer: "Pretty Bird"
Black Violin - Sterotypes
Producer/Writer: "Invisible"
Nina Simone Tribute Album
Keyboards: "My Baby Just Cares for Me"
Nas: Life is Good
Musician
Rihanna - Unapologetic
Co-Producer/Writer/Keyboards: "No Love Allowed"
Big Sean: Hall of Fame
Co-Producer/Writer: "Sierra Leone", Writer/Keyboards: "First Chain", "All Figured Out", and "Control"
Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part 1
Writer/Producer "Master Teacher" and "Telephone"
Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part 2
Writer/Producer "Window Seat" and "Out My Mind, Just in Time"
Erykah Badu: Baduizm
Writer/Producer (Otherside of the Game, Sometimes (Mix #9), Afro (Free Style Skit)), RIAA: Certified 3X Platinum, Grammy Award: Best R&B Album, Grammy Award: Best Female Vocal Performance
Erykah Badu: Mama's Gun
Executive Producer/Writer ("Penitentary Philosophy", "My Life", "Cleva", "Kiss Me on My Neck", "Green Eyes", RIAA: Certified Platinum, Rolling Stone Top 10 Album of 2002
Erykah Badu: World Wide Underground
Executive Producer/Writer ("World Keeps Turnin'", "Bump It", "Back in the Day", "I Want You", "Danger", "Love of My Life World Wide"), RIAA: Certified Gold
Adele: 21
Musician, RIAA: Certified 8X Platinum, Six Grammys
Lauryn Hill: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Writer/Producer/Musician, RIAA: Certified 8 Million, 5 Grammys
Brown Sugar: Sound Track
Writer/Producer, "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)", Grammy Best R&B Song in 2003
Mariah Carey: Emancipation of Mimi
Writer/Producer "Mine Again", RIAA: 5 Million Sold, Grammy (Best R&B Album, Best R&B Performance, Best R&B song for "We Belong Together")
Mariah Carey: E=MC2
Writer/Producer "I Wish You Well", RIAA: Cerified 2X Platinum
D’Angelo: Voodoo
WriterProducer "Chicken Grease", RIAA: Certified 2X Platinum, 2 Grammys: Best R&B Album, Best R&B Vocal Performance
Bilal: 1st Born Second
Writer/Producer: "Sometimes"
Anthony Hamilton: Coming Where I'm From
Writer/Producer: "Cornbread Fish and Collard Greens" and "I Tried", RIAA: Certified Platinum
Anthony Hamilton: Back to Love
Writer/Producer "Live has A Way"
Al Green: Lay It Down
Executive Co-Producer/Writer, 2 Grammys: Best Traditional R&B Performance, Best R&B Performance by a duo or group with vocals
Corinne Bailey Rae: The Sea
Writer/Producer "The Blackest Lily"
Norah Jones: The Fall
Musician, RIAA: Certified Platinum
John Legend: Wake Up
Executive Co-Producer/Writer, 3X Grammy Winner: Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song "Shine", Best Vocal Performance "Hang in There"
The Roots: Undun
Producer: "The Other Side"
The Roots: Things Fall Apart
Writer/Producer
Common: Be
"Be": Writer/Producer, "Love is": All Instruments, "Faithful" -Musician, "Its your World Part 1 and 2": Writer/Producer, RIAA: Certified Gold
Common: Electric Circus
Executive Co-Producer/Writer
Common: Like Water for Chocolate
Executive Co-Producer/Writer, RIAA: Certified Gold
Jill Scott: Who is Jill Scott
Writer/Producer: "Try", "Exclusively", RIAA Certified: 2 Million
Jill Scott: Beautifully Human
Writer/Producer: "Talk to Me", "Cant Explain", RIAA: Gold
Citizen Cope: The Clarence Greenwood Project
Musician
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).