Pandora Launches First Jazz Artist Takeover With Gregory Porter

Today, Pandora launched its first ever Jazz Artist Takeover Mode with 2-time GRAMMY winner Gregory Porter.

Gregory Porter has curated The Pop-Up within one of our most popular stations in the genre, Jazz Radio, and will take listeners through some of his key songs, as well as sharing handpicked song selections and describing what those tracks mean to him. Here’s a few snippets:

On his own track “Liquid Spirit”: Inspired by his mother’s sermons and “always using the metaphor of water to speak of love, basically suggesting that love wants to flow in the path of least resistance. Let it free. Let it flow.”

On his own track “I Will”: “…on the desire to keep pushing for the success of love. The lyric is “I will sail my soul down the river of love / I’m a fool for it, I’m a fool” and I’m okay with being a fool for this wonderful thing. And that is love.”

On other artists: “When I write songs, I try to write songs that are as meaningful as that last line [in “Nature Boy” by Nat King Cole]: ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever love is just to love and be loved in return.’ That’s very powerful, it’s very compact, succinct.”

“[singer Jon Lucien] has always been an inspirational artist to me in that he performs always in that space in between the heart and the head, leaning closer towards the heart, which I think is where I am.”