Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru sekou
Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou
Osagyefo (oh-sah-GEE-fo) Uhuru (ooh-WHO-roo) Sekou (SAY-koo)
It sounds so simple when noted activist, theologian, author, documentary filmmaker, and blues/soul/gospel musician Reverend Osagyefo Sekou says it but it belies the incredible power and thoughtfulness of his work. “Wherever people are catching hell, I try and show up,” he says of his work, which spans from concerts worldwide to in-person organizing in troubled places from Charlottesville, VA to Beirut, Lebanon; New Orleans, LA after Katrina to Ferguson, MO after the death of Michael Brown, Jr.
With the Deep Abiding Love Project, he has helped trained over ten thousand clergy and activists in militant nonviolent civil disobedience through the United States. Rev. Sekou was selected by Ebony Magazine’s Power 100, NAACP History Makers (2015), and on the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 –list of creative thinkers.
The musician and pastor explains the source of his commitment, saying, “My understanding of faith requires justice doing and making in the world. Anything less is idolatry.” Based in Seattle, Rev. Sekou pastors a church there in addition to his other work.
His music is a chief tool of this work. NPR’s Bob Boilen testified that Rev. Sekou delivered one of “the most rousing Tiny Desk performances.”
“When people see me in concert, I pray they come away a little freer,” he attests. Born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in the rural Arkansas delta, he grew up steeped in a unique combination of Arkansas delta blues, Memphis soul, 1970s funk, and gospel that shines through his own music with his Nashville-based band the Freedom Fighters. He remembers, “I was a choir boy who hung out in gambling houses with my uncle. I grew up hearing the blues, soul, funk, and gospel. So my music lives in that liminal space in between sacred and secular.” His live concerts are often likened to gospel revivals and it’s not uncommon to see audiences moved to tears and moved to dance at the same time.
Sekou’s debut album "In Times Like These” was produced by the six-time Grammy nominated group North Mississippi Allstars. AFROPUNK heralded its “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.
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."
He has traveled widely in pursuit of justice:
He spent six weeks on the ground in Charlottesville, VA training clergy in response to the Unite the Right rally.
Following Hurricane Katrina, Reverend Sekou moved to New Orleans, founding the local Interfaith Worker Justice Center.
He co-led an interfaith delegation to Haiti one month after the tragic earthquake, building toilets alongside the Haitian people.
Rev. Sekou traveled to Ferguson in mid-August 2014, directly in the aftermath of Michael Brown Jr.’s killing, on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (the country’s oldest interfaith peace organization) to organize alongside local and national groups. He was arrested multiple times during the Ferguson Uprising, including for ‘Praying while Black’ outside the Ferguson Police Department. He was found not guilty on federal charges following a sit-in at the Department of Justice.
Sekou’s documentary short film Exiles in the Promised Land, which was selected for the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival, is based on his visit to a refugee camp and lecture in Beirut, Lebanon.
He co-founded Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALC-I), which represented over 300 faith-based institutions and organizations working to end the war in Iraq.
Sekou has written two collection of essays: “Urbansouls: Meditations on Youth, Hip Hop, and Religion" and "Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy." He has written widely on the 2011 killing of Mark Duggan by British police and the subsequent London riots, and is the author of the forthcoming "Riot Music: Race, Hip Hop and the Meaning of the London Riots 2011" (Hamilton Books).
Rev. Sekou holds a BA in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Continental Philosophy and Creative Writing from The New School in New York City, New York and is Phd candidate in Religious Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Rev. Sekou has lectured widely, including at Princeton University, Harvard Divinity School, University of Paris IV - La Sorbonne, and Vanderbilt University. He has served as pastor in Jamaica Plains, Boston, MA; and in Queens, NY. Reverend Sekou has served on the National Political Hip Hop Convention Platform Committee.