The idea of doing an R’n’B version of Smells Like Teen Spirit sounds like a feature from 1990s pop culture gameshow Shooting Stars.

In the hands of jazz-pianist Robert Glasper – music director for Mos Def, pals with Kanye West, Q-Tip and Erykah Badu, and producer for Jill Scott and Chaka Khan – the fusion is Grammy Award-winning. His version closes Black Radio, the record which picked up the Grammy for best R’n’B album last year. “I’ve loved that song since I was in junior high school,” says Glasper, thick Afro-American and Texan drawl stringing out the sentence as if it were coming over a tin-can telephone from his new base in New York. “That is one of my favourite rock tunes. I love Kurt Cobain and I love what they stand for.”

In truth, Glasper’s take on the grunge classic is the weakest tune on the album. He wanted to make it different and his own, so the vocals get the gritty treatment and there are some bongos to go with Glasper’s jazz piano over the top.

Crossing genres

“I wanted to keep that acoustic jazz piano throughout whole album. It is why you still feel that jazz, organic feel – because everything is not keyboard.”

Don’t let my words put you off, because the rest of the record is worthy of a Grammy, not least the collaboration with golden-voiced queen of nu-soul and all-round heroine Erykah Badu.

Afro Blue is a Mongo Santamaria tune made famous by John Coltrane. The track was the first jazz standard built upon a typical African 3:2 cross rhythm.

“I always heard her in my mind singing that song. She is by default a jazz singer. Without trying, she sounds like Billie Holiday, she just doesn’t know it. When I called her to do this album, I already knew I wanted her to do Afro Blue.”

Badu had never heard it before. Somewhat dispelling the romantic vision of how the great get inspired, the pair watched a few YouTube videos of other versions then laid down their own take. “She trusts me. She was down. We just did it like that. We got the vibe. It wasn’t just one take but she was really easy to work with.”

The record has a similar production to Badu’s classics Baduizm and Mama’s Gun. “A lot of times in jazz music when people try to do hip-hop or R’n’B it doesn’t come off well because sonically it doesn’t sound correct.”

That’s because it has to be recorded with different tunings and set-ups and mixed in a certain way – and by an R’n’B engineer.

“A lot of elements go into it to make it sound the way it sounds and feel the way it feels. My engineer is not a jazz engineer, so sonically we didn’t want it to sound like a jazz record.”

After four straight-up jazz records, Glasper wanted Black Radio to sound like an R’n’B record.

Glasper studied at The New School For Jazz And Contemporary Music in New York City and has played in bands with guitarists Russell Malone and Mark Whitfield, bassist Christian McBride, and trumpeters Terence Blanchard (Bounce) and Roy Hargrove. But, he says, “Jazz is my main thing. It is just not my only thing.”

He grew up playing gospel music in church.

“Church was the only place where you can be a young person and play in front of an audience every week. At the same time it kind of gives you responsibility. It makes you grow up fast, and gospel music helps you to learn a lot of different styles at one time.”

In Glasper’s era, gospel music borrowed from hip-hop, from R’n’B, from jazz and from classical, “so when you play for a Baptist church, you are prepping yourself to play all kinds of music”.

Those music styles also have black African American heritage. “We, as African Americans, have introduced the world to so much music, that there is not just one kind of music we can call ours.

“That is my reality, so when I chose to do another kind of music, lots of people were like, ‘Oh my God, why would you choose to do that?’ But it’s normal. This is music of my ancestors.”

Jazz purists might not like it, but the greats mixed and matched. “The most prominent jazz heroes did the same thing: Miles, Herbie, Wayne [Shorter], Ron Carter... you can go on and on. They didn’t just play jazz, they played in blues bands and boogaloo bands – all kinds of stuff.”

The fluidity of genre is why Glasper preferred to enter Black Radio in The Grammys’ R’n’B category.

“The Grammy board are not purists and are forward-thinking. “I felt I had a better chance in the R’n’B category and we got nominated for best R’n’B performance as well as best R’n’B album.”

The record was named after the collaboration with Mos Def, because when the rest of the music has died, this stuff will remain.

Glasper says Ah Yeah featuring Musiq Soulchild is Black Radio’s tipping point.

“That was the song that hit the R’n’B world hardcore.”

Ah Yeah is the track that links to Black Radio Volume 2, which is due in September. It’ll have similar vibes: lots of collaborations with friends old and new, and a few covers. “At first it was supposed to be for four or five guests and we would experiment with my band for the rest. Then as my friends kept hearing about it, I would get a call, saying, ‘Hey, what’s up? Why am I not on the album?’”

Before Volume 2, he’s got to finish producing new records by Jill Scott and Chaka Khan.

“I work with people who have a mutual respect for me.

“A lot of people think certain divas don’t listen to anyone. There is a hint of that but they listen to me and are very open, spontaneous and wanting to create.”