I like the unexpected chord change up on the track and the overall melody does it for me. Brilliant house track that’s sure to catch your ear drums.
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bio:
It all started in the 80’s… MJ and Prince were duking it out, Sony genius made music portable, and in a relatively small unknown part of east London, England a child was born; the amalgamation of two generations of musicality.
The son of two classically trained concert pianists and grandson to a classically trained jazz pianist Pope was surrounded by music since birth. From an early age mama Pope would practice piano daily, and papa Pope would play jazz clubs late into the night to pay the bills, whilst pursuing his own classical dream. This fostered and grew Pope’s curiosity for the piano and by age three Pope had learned his first piano piece, by age seven he was improvising. It was around this time that papa and mama Pope split, a split that would have lasting effects and temporarily disconnect him from his wider paternal family. Flash-forward to five years later, the computing revolution was in full swing, Pope produced his first record and a re-union with his paternal family ensued. This marked the start of years of classical jazz training from grandpa Pope…
As Pope grew, so did his musical influences and musical knowledge, which were hugely varied; from Marvin Gaye to Rachmaninoff, Chopin to Herbie Hancock, Duran Duran to The Prodigy, The Rolling Stones to Daft Punk, Public Enemy to Bach and much in-between. The more he listened and learned the more his musical craftsmanship and passion grew.
Pope’s production skill and musicality set the foundation for a successful award winning career as a DJ and producer touring the world as one half of an electronic duo. Times were good but something was missing. The partnership became increasingly fraught and like most things in life, ended. One of the final records the duo released was inspired by Pope’s Supertramp-esque keys and featured, for one of the first times, vocals written and performed by Pope. This was the key that Pope had been searching for, the freedom of expression that he had been missing. Everything became clear, safety in numbers had prevented Pope from taking a solo risk, shadows cast back to the days when papa Pope left home. Not anymore.
Pope hunkered down in the studio and set to writing and producing original records and songs. In tandem he began training his voice and refining his unique vocal tone. Pope cites a wide range of musical influences including soul, electronica, dance, R&B spanning many artists including Prince, Chopin, Quincy Jones, Tower Of Power, Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye to name a few. In an age of music by numbers and generic vocals, Pope’s production, influences, musicality, distinctive voice and large vocal range all come together to make his performances and records special and truly distinctive.
Pope’s first release “Forever” hit over 1.3 million plays on Spotify. Following on, Pope is currently releasing his four part debut ep series entitled the #jointhefaith EP on his new imprint, jointhefaith records. The first two records from the #jointhefaith EP were released in March and April 2016 and have so far reached over 1.2 million Soundcloud plays and nearly 100,000 Spotify plays…
Is Pope England’s unique, soulful answer to Scotland’s Calvin Harris, you decide. One thing is for sure, Pope is set for greatness.
