For perhaps the first time in Grammy Award history, the winner of the Best New Artist Grammy is actually an artist. East Portland’s hot, young and talented jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding surprised everyone by beating out Youtube sensation and all around nice guy, Justin Bieber. Immediately after her victory, outraged Bieber fans hacked Esperanza’s Wikipedia entry and added trash talk. Above the fray, Bieber went out of his way to congratulate Spalding backstage, a conversation which may be seen here.
Here’s the Billboard story on Spalding’s victory, with video interview.
Here, ABC offers ten facts about Esperanza Spalding.
Here’s the NPR review of Spalding’s 2010 release, Chamber Music Society.
And here’s last summer’s Electronic Press Kit video for Chamber Music Society.
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Esperanza Spalding is no relation to EastPortlandBlog.com’s popular contributors, Captain Spaulding and Lawrence Spaulding, but they certainly wish they were.
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