Bilal

Bilal Bio

Bilal Sayeed Oliver (August 23, 1979), more popularly known as Bilal, is an American singer, songwriter and producer. The R&B jazz artist grew up in Germantown, Philadelphia and by the age of 11, he became the choir director for his mother’s church. He then moved to New York for university, studying at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Bilal began to pave his music career by lending his vocals to popular artists in the hip-hop scene, the first being Grenique’s ‘Black Butterfly’ in 1999. By 2000, Bilal featured on Common’s album, ‘Life Water for Chocolate’ along with Guru’s third version of their album, ‘Jazzmatazz’. His features led him to meeting R&B collective, the Soulquarians. This was a collective of the most popular producers and artists, namely Erykah Badu, Mos Def, J-Dilla, Q-Tip, D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq. After his fortunate introduction to the collective, they were featured on his first debut album in 2001, ‘1st Born Second’, hitting number 31 on the US Billboard 100. The album included, ‘Soul Sista’ that peaked at number 18 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Songs and presently has 8.9 million plays on Spotify. He followed ‘1st Born Second’ with, ‘Love for Sale’ which was recorded but never released. This was Bilal’s last solo work before his 10 year haitus. In the meantime, his sultry vocals were featured on songs by Jay-Z, Beyonce, Sa-Ra and Clipse. It was not until 2010 where he released his second studio album, ‘Alright’s Revenge’ released by Plug Records. His song from the album, ‘Little One’, received a Grammy nomination for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in 2011. He then released his third album, ‘A Love Surreal’ followed by his fourth, ‘In Another Life’ released by BBE music. In 2019, Bilal’s 2001 hit single ‘Soul Sista’ has been remixed, featuring Raphael Saadiq for the Queen & Slim movie soundtrack, now with 2.2 million plays on Spotify.