Before Leron Thomas became the left-field rapper Pan Amsterdam, he was a Houston jazz prodigy sharing classrooms with Robert Glasper, touring with Bilal and building a reputation as a trumpeter willing to wander far outside jazz's borders. In this episode of The Almanac of Rap, Thomas traces that journey from Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to New York's jazz scene, and explains how listening to everyone from the Geto Boys and Busta Rhymes to David Bowie and Frank Zappa eventually made genre feel less like an identity than a suggestion. Leron Thomas breaks down:
How touring with Tanya Morgan helped inspire his Pan Amsterdam alter ego
Going from Robert Glasper's Houston classmate to Bilal's touring band
How Iggy Pop discovered Pan Amsterdam and turned the connection into Free
Why Busta Rhymes, Geto Boys and Southern rap influenced his jazz phrasing
The creative tug-of-war between Leron Thomas, Pan Amsterdam and genre itself
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