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James Blake’s Enigmatic VibeZ

Eighteen tracks from a British producer who started in dubstep, became a singer-songwriter, and ended up as the most in-demand collaborator in American rap.

James Blake

James Blake emerged from the London post-dubstep scene around 2009 making instrumental tracks defined by enormous sub-bass and long silences. Then he started singing, and his self-titled 2011 album turned out to be something else entirely: a piano-and-voice record with electronic architecture, and one of the most influential British albums of its decade.

His 2013 album Overgrown won the Mercury Prize. Since then he has become an unlikely fixture in American hip-hop — working with Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Frank Ocean, Travis Scott and André 3000 — largely because his sense of space is unlike anyone else's.

He has also spoken publicly and usefully about depression and about the "sad boy" framing applied to men who write about emotion.

What to listen for

"Retrograde" is the essential and probably his best song — that hummed opening, the slow build, and a synth entrance at the chorus that genuinely startles the first time.

"Limit To Your Love" is a Feist cover and the record that introduced most listeners to him. The bass drop is the whole argument for his production.

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" takes on Roberta Flack, which is close to reckless, and works by refusing to compete.

"Where's The Catch?" with André 3000 contains one of André's best late verses, and "King's Dead" with Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock and Future is the biggest record he has touched.

"Coming Back" with SZA and "Nonviolent Communication" with Metro Boomin, A$AP Rocky and 21 Savage show the range of rooms he fits into.

"Say What You Will" is the most emotionally direct thing he has written — a song about making peace with other people's success.

Go deeper

Overgrown (2013) is the album, and The Colour in Anything (2016) is the sprawling one.

His collaborative album with Lil Yachty, Bad Cameo, is the strangest thing in his catalogue and worth hearing.

For the scene he came from: Burial's Untrue is the foundational record of British post-dubstep and one of the most beautiful albums of the century. Mount Kimbie and Actress are the neighbours.

A last note on why rappers keep calling. What Blake offers is not a hook or a texture but silence — his productions leave holes where most producers would put something, and a rapper dropped into that space sounds twice as large. It is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to provide, and it explains a guest list that runs from Kendrick Lamar to André 3000 by way of Beyoncé.

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