Like a great deal of wonderful initiatives, the plan for Grammy-nominated album “The Urban Hymnal” was to start with sketched out on a paper cafe napkin.
Gospel songwriter and producer Sir the Baptist experienced occur to Nashville in October 2021 to listen to Tennessee Point out University’s Aristocrat of Bands execute throughout homecoming at the invitation of assistant band director Larry Jenkins.
Baptist “fell in love with the band” at the traditionally Black college. Later that evening, more than tacos and pollo enquesado, the two preachers’ little ones bonded as they talked about a collaboration.
“I was battling for gospel, and he was battling for marching band. Correct?” Baptist recalled in an interview. “And what all HBCUs have in popular is this relationship to their roots, which is gospel, proper?
“We said, ‘OK. You know what? This is an critical for our tradition. Let us do it.’”
The record’s nomination for best roots gospel album marks the 1st time a school marching band has been nominated in that classification. It is particularly significant that the honor goes to an HBCU — a historically Black faculty or university — where by marching bands are typically an important component of the schools’ identities and tradition.
Tammy Kernodle, a distinguished professor of tunes at Miami College who specializes in African American audio, understands the worth of marching bands at HBCUs from personalized experience.
At Virginia Point out University, an HBCU in which she acquired her undergraduate diploma, the marching band was “the epicenter of scholar daily life, specially throughout soccer year,” she explained. “You went to the recreation not so considerably to see the soccer crew as to see the band,” and the halftime demonstrate was “the moment in which every little thing stopped.”
Even when there weren’t online games, the drumline or horn sections practising in the evenings shaped the soundscape of college lifestyle, Kernodle reported.
In the culture at huge, generally HBCU bands are thought of mostly for “the pageantry, the high-stepping style, the dance type,” Kernodle mentioned. But this album “reminds us that a big part of that aesthetic, and what will help define the essence and the uniqueness of that aesthetic, is what these bands enjoy — the musicianship, the array of repertory that they mine, and how they convey a comprehensive scope of Black audio background to these performances.”
Although the instrumental musicians on the album are from TSU, the vocalists include things like an all-star ensemble of chart-topping gospel singers like Donald Lawrence and Fred Hammond. Together, they perform a variety of music and styles — from a basic instrumental variation of “Jesus Loves Me,” to the R&B-inflected “Blessings on Blessings,” to the inspirational pop ballad “Going Likely,” with soaring vocals by Kierra Sheard and accompanying melodic rap from TSU alum Dubba-AA.
Some tracks are new arrangements of traditional hymns. Other folks were being composed particularly for the album, like “Dance Revival,” which attributes a foot-stomping, hand-clapping backbeat behind the electrifying voice of Jekalyn Carr. But even that new tune finishes with a segue into the previous spiritual “Wade in the Water.”
The offerings are so varied that Baptist, who is himself a voting Grammy member, was involved the album wouldn’t be recognized in the roots gospel group. Questioned how they chose the music, Baptist and Jenkins reported they needed the album to inform a story about Black historical past.
“These hymnals introduced us from slavery to the White Property,” Baptist stated, noting that many Black leaders have also been preachers, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Even to go from a band standpoint,” Jenkins extra, “in all of our HBCU bands, I guarantee you, you can go to any recreation, every single HBCU band has a version of ‘I’m So Glad’” — a Christian hymn with the lyrics, “I’m so glad Jesus lifted me.”
“At TSU, we get it a step further more. ‘I’m So Glad’ is actually the battle music,” Jenkins stated (The lyrics are tweaked to “I’m so glad I go to TSU”). “So numerous of these matters are infused into the society.”
Properly, it really is the tune that potential customers off the album.
The duo also required “The Urban Hymnal” to talk to the younger learners, some of whom are not Christian or ended up not raised in the gospel tradition.
“I believe it’s awesome that we have been capable to convey rapping to the roots of gospel,” Baptist claimed. “Because in get to make this additional city, we experienced to hook up it to the college students. And if we could not link it to the learners, I never feel the story would have aligned as completely.”
A single of those people learners is 21-calendar year-aged senior Logyn Rylander, who stated she pretty much cried when she very first heard the album. She enjoys the way it blends outdated and new although keeping correct to the spirit and lifestyle of TSU, wherever she is a songs business enterprise big and saxophonist in the Aristocrat of Bands.
“Staying original, remaining correct to on your own: If I’m being completely trustworthy, that is what currently being an Aristocrat is about,” Rylander stated. “We never ever change up what we’re performing for the reason that we see another faculty accomplishing it. We generally stay genuine to who we are. And which is one thing the album has permitted us to characterize on a global scale.”
Rylander hopes for a Grammy gain when the awards are declared on Feb. 5 but explained she was “ecstatic” just to be nominated alongside with her fellow musicians.
“Even if we really don’t get that Grammy, we know folks observed what we can do,” she reported. “I seem ahead to observing what alternatives occur knocking at our door. … Grammy or not, we’re still heading to be the Aristocrats at the conclude of the working day.”
