Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I am not on the phone. I am in the studio with PJ Morton. How are you?
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Yes, I'm good. I'm good. Good to be hanging with you.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Hanging out in Detroit this week and had that pop up and a lot of stuff going on.
But you're here primarily to talk about your brand new project. It is Saturday night, Sunday morning, and I covered the press on that and I just thought the idea was so great because you have been, you know, on both sides. You're a pk.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Yes. Right. Yeah.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Started, you know, Bishop Paul S. Morton. And you also are with still with Maroon 5.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Still with Maroon 5. Yeah. Still doing my R and B stuff.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: So it's kind of like been in all. I mean, I was signing Young Money. I was signing Lil Wayne. You know, I've kind of been all. All over the place.
And for me, it has always kind of been just an unspoken rule that you got to choose at least one or the other. At least one at one at a time. Don't be mixing all of this. And I said, you know, it's kind of the complete. That's who I am. It's who I've always been. And I thought now that people are familiar with what I do, then it was time for this. It almost seemed like a full circle moment to say, you know, let me do both.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah, why not? Why not? I mean, I just remember the song that you won that Grammy for, How Deep Is yous Love.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: How deep is your Love.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I mean, when I first heard that, I'm thinking, you have to do both.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: You know, but music speaks of love. You know, it's supposed to anyway. But if it's love, then, you know, God's love. That's right. Has to be in the music as well. Or it's tainted.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: That's right. And a reflection of life, I think. I think what we've done is we've. We've as humans, have limited God and said, no, God is only the God of praise and worship music, only the God of gospel music. He's not the God of forever love. He's not the God of marriage. He's not the God of love is biblical as well. And for me, as a young songwriter, what always kind of got me stuck was, man, I see my parents, I mean, I know they didn't. It wasn't an arranged marriage.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: They fell in love, they dated, they did all these things. But when I write a song about that process, it all of a sudden becomes secular and it's not Sacred anymore. I don't understand that. I can look to my parents and so many more other examples of even not. Because love is one thing, but we could. What if I want to talk about how green the trees are.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: The sky is. Or how I like this sitting on the table? That's a secular song.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: I think God is the creator of all of these.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yes. You know what I'm saying? I see it on the earth. You know, I'm a newly urban gardener.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: You know, congrats. And for me, please, just pray for me.
But what I have found is that, you know, I planted seeds and now I'm starting to see sprouts. And now I gotta worry about the birds trying to get to the sprouts of my beans. And all of this is God's creation.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: I mean, it's just like no rules. He didn't teach him how to do that. That's just how that works. So if I write a song about that, though, that's not necessarily a worship song, you know, it can be a song called Blue Sky.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: I just think that the gift is biblical. It's like if you're walking in your purpose, walking in your gift, and the things that follow that gift are still in line, you know? And so for me, I know that I freed a lot of people up to this point. I mean, I wrote a book called why Can't I Sing About Love years ago.
That. That. That touched a lot of people. But for me, I. I wanted to go a step further and show. Because for me, I haven't actually properly done a gospel album.
I mean, Gospel According to PJ Had Leandria Mary.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: J. Moss, and. And Yolanda Adams. I had. I did it as a producer, writer mainly. But this time I'm singing. There's no features. I'm singing all the songs. And I just really wanted to. To come home and kind of bring that whole message together of like, man, these love songs, these life songs and these sacred songs, they all. They all belong together. The balance is one of my dad's favorite words.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Well, I'm gonna play Mercy right now, and this is my favorite song. So when we come out of that, we'll come back and talk about it.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: All right, let's do it.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: PJ Morton, y'. All.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Here you go again making a way for me.
Oh, mercy.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: That is Mercy from PJ Morton's project. It is called Saturday, Sunday Morning. That's part of the Sunday Morning.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Sunday Morning. That's right. That's right.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: And I just think it's fantastic because you're doing this.
And I remember when I was growing up, all the R and B albums had one gospel song on it.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember that. Usually the last song.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Yes, the last song. And that's how the Commodores were able to do a crossover, you know, with Jesus Love.
So, for me, the whole project is a Jesus's Love kind of thing.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. No, I like how you. I like how you think of it. It's kind of like my whole. This one album, and that's my gospel contribution.
But, yeah, no, for me, like, even with Mercy, I wanted to. I said, if I'm gonna do a gospel album, I want to do the things that made me fall in love with gospel music. The thing that touched me, those messages, those simple messages. Sometimes we overcomplicate things, but, I mean, the unmerited favor that you freely bestow on me, you know?
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, man.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: When we think of Mercy, we don't have to overthink that. It's like, I don't deserve it. I couldn't earn it, you know?
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, for me, it's the same thing with the song with Darrell Walls.
I hear that in my spirit, sometimes God is able.
And I guess it comes up when things seem to be hard for me.
But Mercy, if you look around what is going on and you make a mistake, you know that God's mercy endures forever. Yeah, man. That is so good. This is so.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Messages that we need. We need to be saying those messages and for me, wrapping them up in the. I mean, the music's got to be jamming, too, you know, for sure. And so I'm happy that's feeling that way. But, like, you know, I say, almost lost my life, but you made old death behave. You know, those are those things that
[00:06:32] Speaker A: I will run out the studio.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: That's what I'm trying to tell you. And I think even in my R B writing, I've always been really intentional about, man, what moves me, what actually. What gives me goosebumps, what makes me feel something.
And those things are important. So in making this gospel record, it's like, no, I want to touch you. You know, I come from Bishop Paul Morgan.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yes, that's right.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: It's, like, all about connection and us connecting to this message.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: That is fantastic. That is fantastic. Well, I cannot wait for the project to come out officially on Juneteenth.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: And we were talking.
You will be back in Detroit on the 29th of July.
I have to be there because you know, it's the day after my birthday.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: That's right. We got family. We finally got family. Detroit Family reunion T shirts. I'm talking about doing it every year because I think I've been doing The Aretha maybe six years.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Yeah. least. Yeah.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: And it feels like a family reunion for sure. And I told Detroit I'm gonna make T shirts for us, and so I got the T shirts coming this year.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Oh, that is sweet.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: And we're gonna. You know, whoever wants to wear their Detroit family reunion shirt, make sure I.
I got you. I got you. We gonna make sure yours is direct. For sure. Yeah.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Well, bj, thank you so much for stopping by the Praise Studio in person.
I am so happy for you and the things that you're doing. Tell your dad I absolutely love the live project as well, because. So we're playing Going through as well.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Go through.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I wrote that as a kid.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: We brought that back with me and my sister.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm so proud. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you stopping by.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Good to be here. Thank you.
