Bio:
Hailed as a “music guru” by Rolling Stone and called "the most creative mixtape producer of all-time” by music icon Questlove, J.PERIOD is a musical storyteller whose work connects cultures, eras and styles.
J.PERIOD's resume boasts collaborations with GRAMMY® winners The Roots, Nas, Kanye West, Q-Tip, Common, Mary J. Blige, John Legend and Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Billboard #1 album, The Hamilton Mixtape.
His extensive roster of collaborators, combined with a visionary approach to musical storytelling, has earned comparisons to both DJ Khaled and Ken Burns. In 2018, J.PERIOD also earned a prestigious appointment to the inaugural Kennedy Center Hip Hop Culture Council. “Make no mistake,” says DJ Booth, “as to the power of J.PERIOD’s impact and influence on hip hop culture."
As a producer and composer, J.PERIOD's work has been featured in EMMY®-winning films (The Doctor), flagship series (America Divided, NBA Inside Stuff), and blockbuster film trailers (Universal Pictures' American Gangster, Fox Searchlight's Street Kings, Paramount Pictures' Terminator: Gynesis).
As Music Supervisor for the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center, J.PERIOD's custom-curated soundtrack won rave reviews as the new standard for music in the NBA arena (ESPN). J.PERIOD also produced the Nets' opening theme song for their first two seasons in Brooklyn.
In 2018, J.PERIOD's groundbreaking performance series, The Live Mixtape (a star-studded Hip Hop mixtape recorded live onstage in one take, and now available on all streaming services) headlined at Sony Hall NYC, The Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and was featured at The Roots Picnic. Other notable performances include: Smithsonian NMAAHC, SXSW, and "Art of The Crossfade" at Ted Talks. J.PERIOD has also performed as Official Tour DJ for artists including Black Thought, The Roots, Lauryn Hill, and Q-Tip.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
J.PERIOD has played an integral part in reinventing how we musically entertain our fans. He has strong ties to Brooklyn and the diversity it represents. We are fortunate to have him as a part of our team.
- Brooklyn Nets
J.PERIOD mixtapes transcends just mixing records. It's how De La puts together an album... and puts meaning behind it. The way J.PERIOD does that is genius."
- De La Soul
Working with J.PERIOD guarantees a musical journey and an astounding educational experience. Listeners are sure to be transported to a space that makes you know how essential music is to the world.
- GRAMMY® U
J.PERIOD is a true master of his craft... He goes more in depth than any other DJ. You can trust that he’s going to bring the best out in you and see to it that you shine.
- Black Thought (The Roots)
J.Period puts such a high level of artistry and originality into every mixtape. Our work together was based on the Wake Up! album with The Roots, but became something new and classic in its own right.
- John Legend
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).