His album, Preacher’s Kid, will walk a fine line between secular music and traditional gospel. Think Tupac or Andre 3000 vs. Donnie McClurkin. The closest thing to that, Sir says, has been Kirk Franklin. “[But] he’s not ‘gon get up and sing about Sunday sex. And who hasn’t had sex on Sunday?” Sir jokes about Kirk Franklin. “I would like to warn listeners that there are a lot of artists that will jump on this gospel – not gospel, because they’re too cool to be gospel – [that] will like to use the same sort of sound because it’s a wave right now.”
He’s not referring to the “corny” trap gospel artists, he says. But the likes of Jay Z, who goes by Hov. And Kanye West, who calls himself Yeezus. Or even J.Cole and Kendrick Lamar, who Sir believes are “urban monks” like himself.
“It’s time we hold everybody to a mission,” Sir explains. “Some of our greatest rappers are mission-driven. J. Cole. Kendrick Lamar. I’m hoping at some point it do hit Drake and he’s just like, you know what, we’ve got to talk about something even deeper.”
Sir is building depth through partnerships and collaborations with Musiq Soulchild and more. That’s why his album didn’t drop last year, he says. He recently joined Musiq in the studio in Atlanta for a music session.
“We were walking out of the studio and Musiq goes, ‘you’re a genius.’ I’m like dude, why did you just do that to me?” Sir laughs. “Working with him and all the people down in Atlanta, that’s super great.”
Meanwhile, Sir is working on several contributions to the world outside of his music. One, which is close to launching, is called DeedPin – a social media website where people can post their good deeds.
“I want to fall in as a preacher. That’s it. I’m not cool enough to be drill,” Sir says, laughing at his statement. “They’re cool. I’m not artsy enough to be Chance [The Rapper]. Chance is dope. I’m just an urban monk. That’s it, just trying to enlighten between the two worlds of drill and artsy.”