Aloe Blacc

A modern soul singer equally at home belting out dancefloor electro anthems or strutting to jazzy hip-hop, Aloe Blacc's eclectic range of tastes and influences make him one of the more interesting new pop voices. Born Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III on January 7, 1979 in Laguna Hills, California and raised in Los Angeles by Panamanian parents, he grew up playing trumpet before discovering LL Cool J and Run DMC and later started his own hip-hop group Emanon with producer Exile in the mid-1990s. Together they released three independent albums of experimental breakbeats, Dizzy Gillespie samples and socially conscious rhymes, while Blacc completed a degree at the University of Southern California and worked as a business consultant. Penning 2010 megahit "I Need A Dollar" after losing his job during the recession, the track reached Number 2 in the singles chart and was used as the theme tune to HBO television series How To Make It In America; while second album Good Things (2010) made the Top 10 and featured a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale." Further success came when he lent his smooth vocals to Avicii's 2013 dance smash hit "Wake Me Up," which reached Number 1 in 22 countries and sold over a million copies in the UK alone. He received a Grammy nomination for his third studio album, Lift Your Spirit (2013), which peaked at Number 4 in the US. Following the festive Christmas Funk album of 2018, 2020 saw the release of Blacc's fifth studio album, All Love Everything.

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