In the Studio with Sekou
Movement music in Memphis.
It is Monday night and I am sitting in a legendary recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, my dear brother of 25 years, is singing on Al Green’s microphone. The musicians—on guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards—are so skilled and soulful; so tight yet loose; so precise yet open; so disciplined yet spirit-led; so schooled in the decades-long, Black-churched path of intuitive improvisation, that Sekou calls them “oily,” the pinnacle of compliments, the paragon of praise.
From Rev. Green to Rev. Sekou, the lovably unpolished environs of Royal Studios have documented the energy and magic of artists such as Tina Turner, Keith Richards, Ann Peebles, Rod Stewart, Solomon Burke, and a river of others.
This musical mecca was built by Willie Mitchell.
Today, Mitchell’s son, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, commands the console. And command it he does: in 2016 Boo Mitchell won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for the monster hit “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars.
As the production pauses for dinner, we gather around styrofoam to-go containers brimming with fried catfish, greens, and hushpuppies. Soul food fueling soul music. As we eat, the keyboardist, K.G., begins a discourse on the time and tutelage it takes to attain an instinctive sense of where the music is going to go, and needs to go, and how some cats have it and some don’t. I can’t help wishing I had this impromptu seminar on video.
KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR SEKOU’S UPCOMING ALBUM…
It is gonna be fire.
It is gonna be soulful.
It is gonna be spiritual.
It is gonna be moving.
It is gonna be danceable.
It is gonna be different.
It is gonna be… oily.
