Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Aloe Blacc

If you think you don’t know who Aloe Blacc is, you’re wrong. If you’ve ever heard the Avicii song “Wake Me Up” then you know him because he’s the one singing- not Avicii, strangely (and if you haven’t ever heard that song you’re probably not reading this because it means you NEVER listen to popular music). If you’ve seen the Beats by Dre commercial featuring Kevin Garnett then you know him because his song “The Man” is what Kevin is listening to (and you might also be starting to hear that song on the radio). You’ve probably also at some point heard his song “I Need a Dollar,” a song that may never have been big enough for the artist to penetrate your brainpan (never made the charts in the US). So you can see Aloe Blacc has been sneaking into your life without you even knowing it.

Here’s a list of things may have or may have not known about Aloe Blacc:

1. Aloe’s last name is pronounced like the color black

2. Aloe Blacc’s given name is Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III and he is 35 years old

3. Aloe Blacc is from Orange County, California, and his parents are Panamanian

4. Aloe is married to an Australian rapper, and they recently had their first baby, a daughter named Mandela

5. Aloe’s “Lift Your Spirit” is his third solo album, the first having been released in 2006

6. He wrote the lyrics to “Wake Me Up” before he ever began collaborating with Avicii

7. He wrote “The Man” around the line “You can tell everybody” from Elton John’s “Your Song”

8. Aloe collaborates with Pharrell (who doesn’t?) on the song “Love is the Answer” on his new album

9. From OC Weekly: “Aloe Blacc chose his name for smoothness’ sake: the first name references the plant associated with lotion and he exchanged the K in ‘Black’ for another C because he considers K a harsher consonant.”