Citizen Cope is the pseudonym of Clarence Greenwood, an American musician. Greenwood was raised in Washington, DC and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
In 1997, Greenwood was featured in The Washington Post weekend section.
After releasing his demo tape, Cope was signed to Capitol Records, where he recorded Shotguns. In 1998, he was dropped from Capitol, without releasing the album.
In 2000, Greenwood signed with the DreamWorks Records label, which released his first album in September 2002, Citizen Cope. To promote the record, Greenwood toured as an opener for Nelly Furtado. He performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, in 2002.
The Washington Post did a large feature on Cope in early 2002, declaring Greenwood the most soulful artist since Marvin Gaye.
In October 2002, Carlos Santana released his record titled Shaman. Greenwood wrote and produced one of the tracks on that album.
After the release of Citizen Cope, Greenwood felt that the label «mishandled» the record. Tension between the label and artist prompted Greenwood to buy out his contract with the label, using the advance he received from his next label, Arista Records and RCA Records, to do so.
In September 2004, Citizen Cope released his second record, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, which became an underground classic. The album has sold more than 273,000 records to date, without any commercial or college radio play. From 2004 through 2008, Citizen Cope endured a heavy tour schedule.
In 2005, Cope continued to tour the United States promoting his second major-label record. In April, his song «Son’s Gonna Rise» began appearing in a Pontiac commercial and was distributed as the album’s second single.
On September 12, 2006, Citizen Cope released the new album, Every Waking Moment.
In early 2008, Citizen Cope parted ways with RCA records.[1]
His song, «Let the Drummer Kick» was featured in the 2008 TSX Acura commercial early that year.
In early June 2008, Citizen Cope announced a special one off solo show at the London Luminaire in Kilburn on the 2nd July.
He made an appearance on Dido’s 2008 album Safe Trip Home, collaborating on a track called «Burnin’ Love».
Throughout 2008, Citizen Cope sold more than 100,000 tickets in North America alone (festivals and colleges not included), doing more than 120 shows.
Cope finished his highly successful US solo acoustic tour in December 2008. Citizen Cope is set to go back on tour, with his full band, in late January through the end of February 2009. He is currently working on his next album. The release date has not been set.
