00:00I am not on the phone. I am in the studio with PJ Morton. How are you?
00:05Yes, I'm good. I'm good. Good to be hanging with you.
00:07Hanging out in Detroit this week and had that pop-up and a lot of stuff going on.
00:14But you're here primarily to talk about your brand new project.
00:19It's Saturday night, Sunday morning.
00:23And I covered the press on that and I just thought the idea was so great
00:29because you have been on both sides. You're a PK.
00:33Yes, right.
00:34You know, Bishop Paul S. Morton.
00:37And you also are with, still with Maroon 5?
00:42Still with Maroon 5, yes. Still doing my R&B stuff.
00:45So it's kind of like I've been in all...
00:47I mean, I was signing Young Money. I was signing Lil Wayne.
00:50I've kind of been all over the place.
00:53And for me, it has always kind of been just an unspoken rule that you've got to choose.
00:59At least one or the other. At least one at a time.
01:02Don't be mixing all of this.
01:04And I said, you know, it's kind of the complete...
01:06That's who I am. It's who I've always been.
01:09And I thought now that people are familiar with what I do,
01:13then it was time for this.
01:15It almost seemed like a full circle moment to say, you know, let me do both.
01:19Yeah, why not? Why not?
01:21I mean, I just remember the song that you won that Grammy for,
01:26How Deep Is Your Love?
01:27How Deep Is Your Love?
01:28Oh my gosh.
01:29I mean, when I first heard that, I'm thinking, you have to do both.
01:33Yeah.
01:34You know, but music speaks of love.
01:37You know, it's supposed to, anyway.
01:39But if it's love, then, you know, God's love has to be in the music as well.
01:47Or it's tainted.
01:48That's right. And a reflection of life.
01:50I think what we've done is we've, as humans, have limited God and said,
01:56No, God is only the God of praise and worship music.
02:00Only the God of gospel music.
02:02He's not the God of forever love.
02:05He's not the God of marriage.
02:06He's not the God of, love is biblical as well.
02:10And for me, as a young songwriter, what always kind of got me stuck was,
02:15Man, I see my parents.
02:17I mean, I know they didn't, it wasn't an arranged marriage.
02:19They fell in love.
02:21They dated.
02:21They did all these things.
02:22But when I write a song about that process, it all of a sudden becomes secular.
02:27And it's not sacred anymore.
02:29I don't understand that.
02:30Well, I can look to my parents.
02:32And so many more other examples of even, not because love is one thing,
02:37but what if I want to talk about how green the trees are and how blue the sky is
02:41or how I like this sitting on the table.
02:44That's a secular song.
02:45But I think God is the creator of all of these things.
02:48You know what I'm saying?
02:50On the earth, you know, I'm a newly urban gardener.
02:55Okay.
02:55You know, and for me, please just pray for me.
03:01But what I have found is that, you know, I planted seeds and now I'm starting to see sprouts
03:07and now I've got to worry about the birds trying to get to the sprouts of my beans.
03:12And all of this is God's creation.
03:15I mean, it's just like no rules.
03:17He didn't teach them how to do that.
03:18That's just how that works.
03:19So if I write a song about that, though, that's not necessarily a worship song.
03:22You know, it can be a song called Blue Sky, you know, and I just think that the gift is
03:28biblical.
03:29It's like if you're walking in your purpose, walking in your gift, then the things that follow that gift are
03:35still in line, you know.
03:38And so for me, I know that I freed a lot of people up to this point.
03:42I mean, I wrote a book called Why Can't I Sing About Love years ago that touched a lot of
03:47people.
03:47But for me, I wanted to go a step further and show because for me, I haven't actually properly done
03:54a gospel album.
03:55I mean, gospel according to PJ had Leandria and Mary Mary and Jay Moss and Yolanda Adams.
04:03I did it as a producer writer mainly, but this time I'm singing.
04:07There's no features.
04:08I'm singing all the songs.
04:09And I just really wanted to come home and kind of bring that whole message together of like, man, these
04:16love songs, these life songs and these sacred songs, they all belong together.
04:21The balance is one of my dad's favorite words.
04:24I remember when I was growing up, all the R&B albums had one gospel song on it.
04:29Yeah, I remember that.
04:30That was the last song.
04:31Yeah, that was the last song.
04:33And that's how the Commodores were able to do a crossover, you know, with Jesus's love.
04:39So for me, the whole project is a Jesus's love kind of thing.
04:45Exactly.
04:45Yeah, no, I like how you think of it.
04:48It's kind of like my whole, this one album and that's my gospel contribution.
04:53But yeah, no, for me, like even with Mercy, I wanted to, I said, if I'm going to do a
04:58gospel album, I want to do the things that made me fall in love with gospel music.
05:02The thing that touched me, those messages, those simple messages.
05:05Sometimes we overcomplicate things, but I mean, the unmerited favor that you freely bestow on me, you know, that's just
05:13like, man, when we think of Mercy, we don't have to overthink that.
05:16It's like, I don't deserve it.
05:17I couldn't earn it, you know.
05:19Yeah, I mean, for me, it's the same thing with the song with Daryl Walls.
05:23Yeah, all able.
05:24I hear that in my spirit sometimes.
05:26God is able.
05:28And I guess it comes up when things seem to be hard for me.
05:32Sure.
05:32But Mercy, if you look around what is going on and you make a mistake, you know that God's mercy
05:40endures forever.
05:41Absolutely.
05:41Yeah, man, that is so good.
05:43This is so good.
05:44Yeah, it's those messages that we need.
05:45We need to be saying those messages.
05:47And for me, wrapping them up in the, I mean, the music's got to be jamming, too.
05:51You know what I'm saying?
05:52And so I'm happy that's feeling that way.
05:54But like, you know, I say, I almost lost my life, but you made old death behave.
05:59You know, those are those things that have been touching us.
06:02Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell you.
06:04That's what I'm trying to tell you.
06:05And I think even in my R&B writing, I've always been really intentional about, man, what moves me?
06:12What actually, what gives me goosebumps?
06:13What makes me feel something?
06:15And those things are important.
06:17So in making this gospel record, it's like, no, I want to touch you.
06:21You know, I come from Bishop Paul Morton, where it's like all about connection and us connecting to this message.
06:27And so I'm excited.
06:29That is fantastic.
06:30Well, I cannot wait for the project to come out officially on Juneteenth.
06:35That's right.
06:35And we were talking about that.
06:38You will be back in Detroit on the 29th of July.
06:43I have to be there because, you know, it's the day after my birthday.
06:46That's right.
06:46That's right.
06:47We got family.
06:47We finally got family Detroit family reunion T-shirts.
06:51We've been talking about doing it every year because I think I've been doing the Aretha maybe six years in
06:55a row now, something like that.
06:56And it feels like a family reunion when we're there.
06:59And I told Detroit, I'm going to make T-shirts for us.
07:02And so I got the T-shirts coming this year.
07:04Oh, that is sweet.
07:05And we're going to, you know, whoever wants to wear their Detroit family reunion shirt, you rock it.
07:10I got you.
07:11I got you.
07:11We're going to make sure yours is direct for sure.
07:14Yeah.
07:15Well, BJ, thank you so much for stopping by the Praise Studio in person.
07:19Of course.
07:20I am so happy for you and the things that you're doing.
07:23Tell your dad I absolutely love the live project as well.
07:29Oh, yes, yes, yes.
07:29So we're playing going through as well.
07:31Yeah, go through.
07:32Yeah.
07:32Yeah.
07:32I wrote that as a kid.
07:34Wow.
07:34You know, we brought that back with me, him, and my sister.
07:37So I'm so proud.
07:39I'm so proud.
07:40Thank you so much.
07:41I appreciate you stopping by.
07:43Good to be here.
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