Reverend Osagyefo Sekou was born in St. Louis and raised in Arkansas, returning home following the murder of Michael Brown to join the resistance in the streets. I first met Sekou in the back of a police wagon on our way to a holding cell several years ago. It was then I learned you can arrest Reverend Sekou, but you cannot arrest his soul. His voice echoed through the jail much of the night in songs of freedom.
On Saturday, October 14, Reverend Sekou graced the stage as part of KDHX’s 30th anniversary party. I had the chance to sit down with Sekou prior to his performance to talk about his artistry and first solo album, In Times Like These.
The American: Some of your inspiration comes from James Baldwin. Baldwin is always speaking on the importance of the blues, on the responsibility of the artist; how has he influenced your work?
Sekou: My love affair began with reading The Fire Next Time in my twenties. My affinity for Baldwin is grounded in the way that Pentecostals began to exercise their sense of calling outside the pulpit. Now I never left the church in the same way James Baldwin did. But I think studying French philosophy at the New School and systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary gave me the opportunity to render the genius of poor people, who were blues people, who raised me – to render their theological genius in philosophical terms. So, in that sense. I have a connection; Baldwin’s writing is just oozing with the best of a kind of black Pentecostal tradition.
The American: I remember hearing you speak in 2014 saying that “we’ve already won.” What did you mean by that and how does it come through in your music?
Sekou: That’s a faith claim. Every time we get up and go into the street and say no, or a trans person affirms who they are in public, or a woman looks into the face of patriarchy and says no – Albert Camus says, “When the rebel says no they are saying yes.” When we say no it can create a space for us to win as we are. Part of my understanding of black life in America is that our political victories are so fleeting. Look back at the promising eight or nine years of Reconstruction, then the promise of the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. The reality is that political victories are fleeting so we come to find a certain comfort and salve in existential victories – right? Because freedom not just a place, it is a state of mind.
The American: Is it a victory when you step on stage?
Sekou: I am my most free when I get on stage. In my tradition, we would say the Holy Ghost comes and meets me on stage. Every time I get on stage, I’m a little freer than I was before and for those folks that come to see us, I hope they are a little freer too.
The American: Now you wrote an essay, “The Task of Artists in the Time of Monsters.” In that you say “artists are the legislators of hope,” then “love is their government.” Can you expand on that?
Sekou: I believe artists – if you look at the history of civilization – have a moral responsibility to articulate a vision of the world which calls into question the various forms and arrangements of that world. So, the artist’s allegiance is never to governments or nation-states. Our role is to prophesize to the nation-state, to prophesize to those in power. To remind citizens of their capacity to resist. And so, for me, love is their only government.
The American: When you perform your song “Resist,” in your chorus – “we want freedom and we want it now” – I hear a little added energy behind you.
Sekou: Well, we recorded the record about a month after Trump was elected and so there was a certain kind of feeling in the air.
The American: You’ve said before, “If your practice is not rejuvenating you, you’re doing something wrong.” How does that relate to your music?
Sekou: Frantz Fanon says, “We struggle not only for the product of freedom, but we benefit from the process.” And so, in singing freedom music, I get freer.
The American: The album’s title, “In Times Like These,” where did that originate?
Sekou: It’s kind of one of those scriptures that has been prayed over me by Pentecostal elders, that God might raise you up for a time like this. And I don’t take that lightly. Given what we have at the federal level and the sweeping role back of civil rights legislation, we ultimately cannot depend on the government. And so we struggle locally. That’s why I think Ferguson and the struggle over the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith is so crucial. It creates a space for us to understand that can’t nobody save us, we are the leaders we’ve been looking for.
