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Instant Vintage: Robert Glasper – Let Go

Robert Glasper spent fifteen years proving jazz could absorb hip-hop and R&B. Then he made a record that asks you to sit still and breathe.

Let Go: the quiet album from the loudest bridge-builder in jazz

Released 7 June 2024 on Loma Vista Recordings, Let Go is Robert Glasper's twelfth studio album and a deliberate turn away from what made him famous. The Black Radio trilogy had established him as the musician who could put Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar, Yasiin Bey and Common in a jazz context and make it feel inevitable. Let Go does almost the opposite: no rappers, few vocals, and an atmosphere closer to ambient music than to a jazz record.

Glasper described the intent plainly — music to "help you find your center" and "quiet the world." Reviewers picked up on the same quality, describing it as a calm, nearly ambient collection meant for meditation, focus, or simply lowering the temperature in a room. Thirteen tracks, close to fifty-nine minutes, and remarkably little of it announces itself.

Who's playing

The band matters. Meshell Ndegeocello sings on the opening "Breathing Underwater," and her presence sets the register for everything after. Kendrick Scott plays drums with extraordinary restraint. Burniss Travis handles bass and flute — his "Luna's Lullaby" feature is one of the record's most affecting passages — and Chris Sholar plays guitar. Ian Davis contributes spoken word, Jahi Lake handles turntables.

What to listen for

Track for track this is an album about space. "Your Eyes" and "Inner Voice" are built almost entirely from sustained chords and the decay between them. "Round 'bout Sunlight" and "Awakening Dawn" have the most recognisably Glasper harmonic language — those unresolved, hovering voicings that made In My Element so distinctive.

"Going Home," "Deep Down" and "Enoch's Meditation" sit at the album's stillest point. "Truth Journey" closes it.

The album arrived with an Apple Music exclusive window during Black Music Month, and was followed in 2025 by Code Derivation. Play Let Go when you need the volume of the day turned down.

Go deeper

For the Glasper who made his name, Black Radio (2012) is still the pivotal record — it won a Grammy and effectively licensed a generation of jazz musicians to work openly with rappers and R&B singers. In My Element (2007) is the straight-ahead trio album that proves he earned the right.

Code Derivation (2025) is where he went next.

If Let Go's stillness is what appeals, the deeper tradition is Alice Coltrane's devotional recordings, Pharoah Sanders and Floating Points' Promises, and Laraaji. Meshell Ndegeocello's own recent albums — particularly The Omnichord Real Book — occupy adjacent ground and are wildly underrated.

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