JAMES BLAKE OFFICIALLY RELEASES HIS VERSION OF “GODSPEED”

 JAMES BLAKE OFFICIALLY RELEASES HIS VERSION OF “GODSPEED”

FRANK OCEAN COVER HAS GENERATED OVER 5 MILLION VIEWS ON TIKTOK

 

(NEW YORK, NY – September 11, 2020) – Today, GRAMMY® Award-winning UK singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer James Blake has officially released his cover of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed” with accompanying music video.

Listen to “Godspeed”: HERE

Watch the music video: HERE

James Blake, who produced, arranged and played on the original version that appears on Frank Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde, initially performed the cover as a snippet on his Instagram Live. The clip of Blake’s reimagined version organically caught fire and incited a flurry of activity on TikTok. Almost immediately, it inspired nearly 500,000 videos and accumulated a total of over 5.2 million views on the platform. Press were quick to praise the musician’s stripped-down piano rendition with Hypebeast noting, “He exudes his ghostly vocals throughout, layering his soul-inflecting delivery over the skeletal piano chords.”

Of the cover, James says:
“This song has always been special to me, but I wasn’t expecting the response it’s gotten. Love to everyone who willed the full recording into existence.”

“Godspeed” arrives on the heels of his latest offering “Are You Even Real?” which has already generated 7.2 million Spotify streams since release. In addition to plugs from Pitchfork and more, Consequence of Sound described it as “captivating,” and NME dubbed the music video “mind-bending.”

ABOUT JAMES BLAKE:

The GRAMMY® Award-winning UK singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer unassumingly operates as the enigmatic engine behind some of the most influential albums of the 21^st century. He produced choice cuts on Frank Ocean’s Blonde and Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. as well as JAY-Z’s 4:44 and Beyoncé’s Lemonade—to which he also lent his voice in both cases. Feature appearances span “Stop Trying to Be God” with Stevie Wonder and Kid Cudi on Travis Scott’s epic ASTROWORLD and “King’s Dead” with Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, and Future from the chart-dominating Black Panther: The Album. The latter not only went triple-platinum, but it also earned Blake his first GRAMMY® Award in the category of “Best Rap Performance.”

Simultaneously, he emerged as pop’s most celebrated outlier with his dynamic solo output. He introduced a singular sound on 2011’s James Blake. Awarding the record a rare 9.0-out-of-10 score, Pitchfork crowned it one of “Top 100 Albums of the Decade So Far (2010-2014).” On its heels, the 2013 Overgrown illustrated his rare magnetic ability to align the likes of Brian Eno and RZA on the same project. It notably received the 2013 Mercury Prize and secured Blake’s “Best New Artist” nomination at the GRAMMY®Awards. After 2016’s The Colour In Anything, he reached new critical and commercial peaks with Assume Form during 2019. It bowed at #21 on the Billboard Top 200, marking his highest entry to date. Beyond clocking 300 million cumulative streams in under a year, it garnered the GRAMMY® nomination for “Best Alternative Album” and graced “Best of 2019” lists for outlets including Time Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, Billboard, DJ Booth, and Esquire. Additionally, he oversees 1-800 Dinosaur, which spans a club night, record label, and radio show.

As he prepares his fifth album, James Blake’s shadow over popular music only continues to grow.