blueS & bookS

WHEN WE FIGHT WE WIN

On July 6, 2018, over 1,500 people gathered at the historic Levitt Shell in Memphis, TN to welcome Rev. Sekou home to the mid-south (Memphis, TN being the nearest metropolitan area to the Arkansas delta). For nearly two hours, the audience was treated to stellar performance that was one-part protest rally, one-part Pentecostal tent revival, and one-part late night juke joint. Sekou performed both new arrangements from his albums and never-released music. The revelatory concert, with his band the Freedom Fighters, became the live album, “When We Fight, We Win,” which prompted Paste Magazine to say, "Rev. Sekou delivers the spiritual performance we need now."

IN TIMES LIKE THESE 

To make his debut album, In Times Like These, noted activist, author, documentary filmmaker and theologian Rev. Osagyefo Sekou went back to his Southern home searching for his family’s musical roots in the deep Arkansas blues and gospel traditions. Produced by six-time Grammy nominated Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, featuring Luther’s brother Cody Dickinson, and supported by Thirty Tigers, Rev. Sekou’s debut solo album is a new vision for what Southern blues can mean today. In Times Like These is drenched with the sweat and tears of the Mississippi River, the great tributary that ties so much of the South together. The album’s sonic landscape captures the toil of Southern field hands, the guttural cry of chain gangs, the vibrancy of contemporary street protest, backwoods juke joints, and shotgun churches—all saturated with Pentecostal sacred steel and soul legacy.

THE REVOLUTION HAS COME 

On Jan. 31st, 2016, Rev. Sekou & the Holy Ghost released their debut album, “The Revolution HasCome”. AFROPUNK celebrates the album’s ”deep bone-marrow-level conviction”. The single, “We Comin'” was named the new anthem for the modern Civil Rights movement by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  The sanctified blues of Rev. Sekou is an intense blend of late North Mississippi Hill Country Music, Arkansas Delta Blues, 1960s Rock and Roll, Memphis Soul, Chuck Berry St Louis vibes, and Pentecostal steel guitar.

GODS, GAYS, AND GUNS: RELIGION AND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY

“Democracy and God have failed" captures the spirit of this provocative collection of essays. Arguing that religion must be used for the expansion of democracy, Sekou takes up gay marriage, economic justice, and social movements. Written in Parisian cafes, London’s ghettos, and the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake and post-Katrina New Orleans, Gods, Gays, and Guns is a spiritual tour-de-force, revealing a crisis of faith in religion and democracy.

Urbansouls: religion, youth, and hip hop culture

Original published in 2001 urbansouls foreshadows the Ferguson uprising by offering keen insight on the social and cultural situation of the greater St. Louis region. Written while serving as a youth pastor and community center director in the late ‘90s, Sekou reads the religious sensibilities of hip hop as a meaning-making activity for those who have been alienated from society's traditional institutions such as the church.