A Wild West revenge tale and the Black roots of cowboy culture

Recently, we lost one of country music's "Greats," "Dolly Parton."

I love "Dolly," my kids receive books through her imagination library, her children's literacy program, and I just loved her larger than life style. You know, she embraced her big hair and the rhinestones, and the cleavage, which I also enjoy.

“And I think I saw a little bit of myself in her, or really, she gave me permission to be”

more of myself. I am not subtle. I don't have a classic style. I can be a little bit over the top, and I love a bit of goddiness. And so I loved that "Dolly" embraced that, and allowed me to embrace being me.

And honor of "Dolly," I wanted to bring you a conversation today with a member of the next generation of country musicians. Somebody who also won't compromise his vision and his style, Shibuzi. Now you may know the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Shibuzi from his features on Beyoncé's

“cowboy Carter, or from his chart-tapping single "A Bar Song Tipsy."”

Well, his latest record has a different vibe. That's the song "Sweet Revenge" from the outlaw, Sherry Lee, and other western tales. "Sweet Revenge" is the fifth song on a genre-defying album all about the epic life of the titular outlaw, Sherry Lee, and about how far she'll go in her quest for vengeance. Shibuzi wasn't sure how this album would go down.

It's a high-concept feat of storytelling, fusing hip-hop with country, spoken word, and balance. It even comes with a comic book that builds out Sherry Lee's world. But also Shibuzi hopes it's a reminder and a celebration of the Black Roots of Western cowboy culture.

"I hope that people can understand it, like, "Just me, I'm a representation, I am black, I am in country music, I am, there's nothing you can do to take that for me." Today, on the Sunday story, Shibuzi tells me about the inspiration behind his outlaws, and how his cinematic album came together. Stay with us.

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And beyond, join me, Todd's Willick, and me, Jen White, on the one A podcast from W.A.M.U. and N.P.R. We're back with this Sunday story. Shibuzi joins me now. I would say howdy, but where I come from, we will say, hey y'all, so hey y'all.

So Shibuzi, your new album tells the story of an outlaw named Sherry Lee. Please introduce us to her.

“Honestly, the way Sherry Lee kind of birthed in my brain, it was like a character that”

just hit me out of nowhere that needed to just be brought to life.

When I started working on this album six, seven years ago, I remember writing the first

in the chaos of all that, they actually then they took the life of this sheriff, but what they didn't know is the sheriff had a daughter and that daughter was coming for vengeance. So really, she just, you know, when I write stories, sometimes these characters are just just birthed out of nowhere and then they take on a life of their own and then I just start following their journey and I just document what I'm seeing.

So sometimes when people ask the question, who Sherry Lee, I'm like, man, you got to find out for yourself. Well, I mean, she's out for revenge, right? She is out for revenge and that comes up over and over on the album. Why did you want to really delve into this idea of revenge and whether it's sweet and

“then also looking at how you got to deal with the consequences of your actions?”

Is any part of her story rooted in your actual life experience?

Yeah, I think as an artist, everything is always rooted in some sort of life experience,

whether you know it or not, I think the beauty of this whole album is how much I'm also learning about myself and helping process a lot of different things that I've experienced in my life about, you know, everyone has a little outlaw in a little cowboy to them, you know, and I think for her it's the same thing. I think a lot of the women that have existed in my life where I've come across in my life

have all, like, changed me in so many, so it's definitely rooted in some reality. Maybe there's someone out there that wants to get vengeance against me, you know, and what they're probably in, you're a man, so they're probably, I should get out of there. I'm just looking at you, I think somebody's going to get some vengeance on you. I look at you, you know how long, so I'm going to be saying it, and maybe it's my way of

just coming to turns with it or playing it out, you know, trying to get ahead of it. They're making it right, it's probably a little bit of that. Yeah. I mean, so you're, and speaking of women, like your last album was like a huge hit, in particular, of course, a bar song, tipsy, it's been 19 weeks at the top of the billboard

“charts, is cowgirl, which is on this album, is that a follow-up kind of to, to tipsy?”

I mean, it's telling everybody get to the dance floor, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You hear some crazy, actually, row cowgirl four years before I wrote a bar song. Oh.

In a different form, honestly, more and like, it was actually a little more hip-hop before.

But it was actually an older song that I had wrote for the first iteration of this album.

Uh, which initially it was called, we ran the sheriff out of town, and obviously continuing to work on it. I came up with the idea of changing it.

“And I think I have like a note on my phone with a hundred different titles for the album.”

And then I remember starring the outlaw, Sherylie, and other Western tales. So cowgirl was definitely a song birth in that generation of the album. And I just brought it back to this one, you know, having the song, just for people to dance to. Yeah.

I mean, was that important for you? This is a concept album. It's a high concept album, and we're going to get into that. But was it important for you to also have those numbers where people could feel like they could just dance?

They don't have to know the whole story, they don't have to be into the whole thing. Yeah. A hundred percent. I remember exactly how it came about, you know, I was, I was in my high concept world. I'm like, you know, this song got to make sense with this song and this song and this

song and, you know, my manager, you know, he was like, man, we need this song for the ladies. I'm listening to all this. Another for the ladies are in that way, you know, Sherry Lee, the whole thing is about that.

But, you know, you need a song that people can kind of dance to and have fun.

And I remember at first, he said that, and then another friend came to me and said the

same thing without even hearing them music, he was just like, yeah, man, you know, I hope you got something for something that's a little bit more pop, you know, easy to just easy going. Yeah. And I remember, um, we threw a party that night, and I remember we were playing all the

classics, wagging wheel, chicken fried, um, you know, uh, miss American pie, all that stuff. And I noticed that people really started dancing to those songs. And I was like, man, let's, I want to do a new version of, uh, of those kind of like fiddle tunes, you know, so that's kind of how a cowgirl got, uh, birth and the next day

I made the song in the studio. Well, and, and the concept album, getting into the deep part about it, like, it is a combination of songs with lyrics, instrumental numbers, and, like, these spoken word pieces by these really big stars, um, like, hell is hot, which I think we have a clip of it. Yeah.

Obviously, that's Jamie Foxx, remember, hell's hot. I mean, obviously, it gives the album this theatrical feel, but like, why did you want to include spoken words on your album? Cause I thought, when I saw Jamie Foxx, I thought you were going to be singing, give it us a groove.

I'm like, what is like, I'm like, oh, this is different. You've given us the acting. You know, I, you know, I'm a mad, mad man sometimes, you know, what comes out, you know,

“I think for me, I have such an, I've always wanted to be a filmmaker, you know, and”

it's really cool to see, I know my childhood self is probably like, dang, he's really doing it.

But I've always been trying to make films and movies and right stories like that.

So I think my, my goal with this was to create an album that did feel like a movie and have features that felt more like an ensemble cast than just music, you know, I'm always a guy like any time on anyone's job in the album, I'm always like, who's on the, who's on the, what's the features, what's the features? And I think what's really cool about this is to fact that, you know, getting Jamie Foxx,

Kaylani, Leon Bridges, Gunna, but also Sam Elliott. Yeah. Yeah. Times up, outlaw, your rope friend, short, someone's got to pay for other blood you took. It's only you and us now, the rest of your boot cut boys are dead.

I mean, how did you get all of these people? Because I mean, you got like, everybody's someone like, what's anybody hard to get? Was it just like, Shibuzi, everybody was like, yes, we're doing it. I think so.

“And that's what I think is like, it's really, it's really just, you say, you that guy.”

That's what you say. That's what I'm doing, because I said, Shibuzi, that said he's saying, you're up. That's exactly what I'm doing. Hey, look, what's really amazing is how a lot of the people on the feature, like, the feature that's our connect, you know, connect with it.

Like Sam Elliott was telling me, you know, a lot of his family members love this song too. And like, he loves this song and loves my music. And I think really, and you know, sometimes you just got to just, you just got to stick to it, you know, I know I had this crazy idea for this outlaw, Sherry Lee for a while.

And, you know, and I always wanted to do it and do a concept out of him, but it was about

time. And so it's cool that every step of my journey helped create, you know, I made a lot of friends and fans along the way that, you know, just wanted to be a part of it. You know, I just asked, really, and that's what I love about it. It's, you know, everybody came and brought something unique and see on a tailor she heard

and she was like, she was like, just, just like, just like, sinners. Yeah. That's like some. I was like, you know, I was like, that's crazy. So.

Well, I mean, you know, speaking of N. K. Lonnie, it's wanted and she, it's a beautiful piece. It's Blitz and Blades. Let's play a little clip of that. I know your past was a god-offer place, but look what it made. That's a lot.

That's a bar. You know what I'm saying? That's a bar. Who can we throw that? Yeah.

You know, I always say everybody, all of us collectively as people wrote it, you know,

“and that's what I love about a song like that.”

It just feels like it connects with everybody. Like, I remember playing that song with some of the little listening meetings I did and I couldn't help but to cry. You know, it's a hard song I have to cry too. Because you know, I know all of us, we've all been through a lot of things and, but

each one of those things that we went through. I wouldn't be who I was if it wasn't for those moments that, you know, I was, I felt, you know, pain and, and the things we experienced in trauma, you know, it made us who we are and it's beautiful, those imperfections. So I really wanted to do a girl you're amazing just the way you are, but you know,

Sherry Lee obviously she's experienced this loss. She's lost both her parents. I mean, she's lost her father, but prior to that, she also lost her mother and she's obviously going through all of these different emotions, but it's created this strong, beautiful woman that the character who I play and his booze, which is myself, falls in love with

and all the other characters, all the other outlaws, everyone's kind of, they have a story before those moments.

have a better future always.

When we come back, Shibuzi tells us why this was the perfect moment for Sherry Lee and about his black country heroes, stay with us. This season on Planet Money Summer School, we have drilled for oil in Norway, we've smuggled products in the North Korea, and now we make it to our seventh continent, Antarctica. That's right, speak for me.

Mr. Penguin, speak for me. That's another sound of Antarctica, that's a reporter trying to interview a penguin. We'll explain on Planet Money Summer School, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi there, I'm Brittany Loose, and not to brag, but I host a really fabulous podcast.

It's called, "It's been a minute."

“I love making it, and I think you'll love listening to it.”

Over the last year, hundreds of thousands of listeners have been tuning in, and I got to say, if you haven't yet, you're missing out. Listen to the "It's been a minute" podcast from NPR today. We're back with Shibuzi on the Sunday Story. You know what you talked about, like, timing, and I have to wonder because, okay, you

have, you know, Barsong, and it's a huge hit. That puts a lot of pressure on any artist, like, okay, when you're going to make the next one, you're going to make the next Barsong, and it could have also put you in a box in a way, right?

Like, okay, we want you to make that song that's going to be hot on TikTok, right?

Was there any resistance to you doing a concept album, and saying, 'cause you're, like, going in a different direction and saying, "Let me do this high concept thing instead of, like, let me just give a bunch of, you know, songs." 'Cause I mean, as someone else who you worked with famously said, Beyoncé, people don't make albums anymore, and they don't make albums anymore.

Man, I think for me, that's a great question, and it's come up a number of times, and there's definitely been some, you know, a lot of, like, emotions around that whole idea of, you know, doing what's familiar and just doing what, you know, what may be, some would consider the safer thing, and nah, I think when I brought the idea, you know, everyone was on the team was really supportive, I was actually very surprised.

I mean, this is the idea, I mean, I brought this up a couple years ago, and I remember at that time, you know, if you were like, we need to get to know who you are before you, you know, get into this concept world, but now it just feels like they feel like I, you know, they said, you know, you've earned this, and I'm just really grateful to have the team I have that support the idea, and anytime I have any doubts, they're like, what are

you talking about, brother?

“Like, this is exactly what you need to be doing.”

I mean, you're from Woodbridge, Virginia, a suburb of the DC metropolitan area, and your parents are Nigerian. What led you to fall in love with country music? I think a mix of a lot of different things, I think just being in Virginia and just trying to understand the history of music there, you know, I knew a lot of times when you think

of Virginia music, you think, you know, Farel, Missy, Timberland, clips, Teddy Riley, I mean, I keep going on. You know what I mean? Yeah. But there's history beyond that as well with Patsy Klein, you know, a Winchester Virginia,

native, Amy Lou Harris, who went to the high school, Carter family as well in Bristol, Virginia. They did the Bristol recordings, which they recorded with a lot of that with Leslie Riddle, who also penned a lot of those songs or wrote a lot of those songs, or it's just a lot of a rich history of country music in general, Virginia. And I just wanted to figure out what it celebrated all, combining obviously the hip hop elements

of what we, you know, what I grew up listening to as well as the country music that I came to love later and some, and what I was exposed to early on in my life.

“I think it was really just meditating on where I'm from, in Virginia, and I've always been”

kind of just like talking about nature and just trying to help people like just connect back to nature and connect back to, to the simple things they have, you know, in life. So it was really me just trying to celebrate those things, you know? What do you feel like, you know, you mentioned, obviously Beyonce and Cable Carter, and obviously there's been all of this attention, even way before that, when, you know, black

art is in country music, and I know you probably get asked this question all the time. And because of that, I kind of want to ask you, what do you think, like, in terms of black Western history, are there specific people or like historical moments that

Yeah, I think a lot of the, a classic like Western characters, like Bill Piggit, was definitely

when I read about Bass Reeves, who was a historical lawman back in the West and, you know, George Fletcher as well, there's been so many things, ever since I started this project, I feel like my algorithm has been just showing me more and more stories that wish I was

“able to read before, you know, and I wish more people saw these stories, because I think”

for the longest time, obviously, like in the 1950s, 1960s, like in the early year, like the Cowboy image, you know, we tend to think that was just a, you know, a white man, you know, on a horse with a cowboy hat, but, you know, one in every four cowboys were black and a lot of them even, like, most of them even, like, it was like Latin American, so it's cool to just, like, I hope people see this as a representation and, you know, what people feel brave, not even

brave, they shouldn't even feel brave, like, this is natural to us in, you know, when people ask me, why are you making, you know, our country music and why are this, I'm like, why not, you know, this was in, it wasn't a choice, you know, it was just felt like it was a part

of me already, so, and just to be able to continue that history, is everything.

Well, they, they, that, that is, that is lovely, and returning to the album, just as we close, I love your song, "Coyote's Point", or "Coyote", "Coyote", we got, we got a clip of it. - I'm like a tarab in play right now. - Well, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it out, bring it out. - Come on, come on. (laughing)

- Oh, look, if it's out, bring it up. - It's you, bring it up, oh my gosh. - Wow. - Oh my goodness. - That is beautiful.

- You guys are so big. - I got here, low, I got something. - Come here. (laughing) - Yeah, come to the show for me. - I got something.

- Okay, I knew that would go, I knew you were gonna say that. - You like, look, you gotta get some tickets. (laughing) - You gotta get to the show for that. - That was impressive. - That was wonderful. That was a, but that's coyote, that's coyote's point. And we'll play a clip with some. - That's a clip, go ahead.

- With a great play. - Play a clip. (upbeat music) ♪ It feels of the jars on the shelf ♪ ♪ I've heard it makes kiosk sing by this ♪ ♪ And hunt like you ♪

♪ Now I think I might be a bit of a coyote myself ♪ - No spoilers, but there's, there's,

“that song is, that's what the whole album is about.”

She doesn't start out as an outlaw. If you listen correctly, pretty much what happens to her, makes her to create that. And that's what the whole, that's what coyote's point is about. So, you know, she actually becomes the coyote.

(laughing) - You know what I mean, I mean, I'm a bit of an outlaw myself. You know what I mean? She's like, like, they're all this stuff, like, I didn't hang out with these guys.

Like, I didn't, I didn't became a part of the whole world. - No, you know, now I love moonshine, you know? So, Kyle's point is actually from the perspective of Sherry Lee. And I didn't really realize that till I was singing the song on the microphone, and I was like, oh, no, like,

this whole thing is about her going from small town prairie girl, daughter of a sheriff to then become an coyote, by the end of the, but is that where you want people to go on, where we all got a little bit of this in us? - A coyote, yeah, we got a little bit of this.

- Yeah, yeah, you know, it just takes nothing's black and white, you know, there's experiences that happen to you and there's how you respond to the world around you, you know? - Yeah, well, that Shibuzi, talking about his new album, the outlaw, Sherry Lee, and other Western tales.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you so much, you were awesome, amazing.

- This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Rene's Varnaski. Jenny Schmidt, edited this episode, special thanks to Andrew Craig and Jacob Finston who worked on the original interview.

The Sunday Story team includes Lyanna Simstrom, Andrew Mombo, and Justin Yann. On the prong master of this episode, our executive producer is Irene Naguchi. I'm Ayisha Roscoe up first, as back tomorrow,

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