October London

Foremost an artist steeped in soul traditions, October London possesses a silky and emotionally resonant singing voice that echoes the legacies of earlier masters, particularly Marvin Gaye, while proving equally adept at rapping and at ease across throwback R&B, polished house tracks, and earthy modern country ballads. A longstanding collaborator with Snoop Dogg, he has appeared on multiple recordings by the rapper and released material through Cadillacc Music, Doggy Style, and the relaunched Death Row imprints. Among his key releases stand Please Leave a Message (2022), The Rebirth of Marvin (2023), and October Nights (2024).

Born Jared Samuel Erskine in South Bend, Indiana, he first recorded under the name Sam London. His initial appearance arrived in 2013 via a reinterpretation of Juicy’s slow jam “Sugar Free,” which had originally charted in the year of his birth. Late that same year he issued the EP The Introduction, whose material spanned Motown-inspired R&B and folk-pop. The Latin-tinged single “Baila Conmigo” arrived in 2014. Two years afterward he adopted the October London moniker, aligned himself with Cadillacc Music run by Jazze Pha and Snoop Dogg, and delivered his label debut Color Blind: Love in October 2016, spotlighting both the pointed protest track “Black Man in America” and the more blues-inflected title song that showcased his upper register. The follow-up Color Blind: Hate & Happiness appeared the next April and included “Top Down,” which featured a guest verse from Snoop Dogg; London had already begun a series of contributions to Snoop’s projects with his vocal hook on “Revolution,” the closing cut of Coolaid.

After Cadillacc Music closed, he issued the stylistically divergent standalone tracks “Delorean” and “Quarantina” in 2020. The subsequent year brought further singles on Doggy Style—“LSD,” “Lime Squeeze,” and “Tennessee Whiskey”—alongside the Caribbean-inflected “I Want You,” which Def Jam released. In 2022 London entered a sustained association with the reactivated Death Row Records under Snoop’s ownership, beginning with “I Dont Give a Damn,” a track that extended the country leanings of “Tennessee Whiskey.” He then returned briefly to Doggy Style for the forward-looking R&B EP Please Leave a Message before releasing Crypto Winter, explicitly labeled “The Dubstep/House Album.” During 2023 he fully embraced a Marvin Gaye-inspired approach on The Rebirth of Marvin, supplied additional club-oriented material on the Technicolor EP, and put out the holiday collection The Greatest Gift; he also contributed the ballad “Eternity” to the soundtrack of The Color Purple. October Nights, previewed by the Stylistics-echoing “She Keeps Calling” and the refined “A Beautiful Woman,” surfaced in October 2024.