Gregory Porter is totally ok with fame. In fact, the jazz crooner embraces it – not glossing over all it’s allowed him to do: travel, make money, and connect with a loyal fan base. Even though his iconic cap means he’ll never go undetected again.
The 48-year-old is back on the promo wagon again with the release of his latest song Revival and announcement of sixth studio album All Rise. But is he ready to be thrust back into the fame game and all its pitfalls again?
‘I take it the way that I see it, it’s an opportunity for me. I feel lucky,’ he tells Metro.co.uk during a whistlestop tour to the UK. ‘I wasn’t doing music before and now that I do and I get to travel around the world and sing to people on my terms, I sing when I want to sing.’
Known for his famous cap – which he’s explained in the past covers scars following surgery – it’s hard for Gregory to go around undetected.
Fans see the cap, they know it’s him (in fact, during our interview he was approached by a fan wanting a selfie – call that timing). But one time he was able to borrow a little alone time while on holiday.
‘The only time I didn’t get recognised I took off my hat to swim in the ocean in Ibiza and no one recognised me,’ he laughs. ‘I went back to my hotel and put my hat on…and there was Gregory Porter.
‘But it’s ok because people are trying to connect and take a picture and say thank you for some joy they had. I’m really ok with it and I always honour people and they honour me by coming to my concerts. I’m thankful.’
So, the hat acts as some sort of reverse invisibility cloak?
On his upcoming album, Gregory bares all as he opens up about his past, singing about an absent father and his emotions surrounding his childhood. Noting that while not everything he sings will be positive and uplifting, ‘even if it’s a difficult subject matter, I’m thinking of an optimistic way to speak about it’.
When it comes to his dad, he adds of a particular song on his new album: ‘At the end, I say, “he didn’t teach me a doggone thing but how to sing”. I’m flipping the negatives around.’
Gregory also lets his lyrics do the talking on another song, in illustrating what he’s gone through in the past as a black man.
Referencing an upcoming tune about thanking someone for treating him ‘normal’, he says: ‘Why would I sing a song about a man treating me normal and positively? Probably because I’ve been treated rude and negatively and probably with a bit of racism.
‘When I say “thank you for treating me like a regular joe”, I’m basically suggesting that I hadn’t been treated that way.’
First up though fans have been blessed with a delightful track in Revival, which, taking notes from Marvin Gaye, melds perfectly a song about power and meaning with a banging backbeat.
‘The song is about renewal and revival of what can happen when the spirit is diminished by way of politics, by way of racism, by way of financial issues, anything that can happen in the human condition,’ Gregory explains. ‘What I’m thinking of is some catalyst for the renewal of spirit, rejuvenation of self-doubt and insecurity.’
He continued: ‘The beauty and the irony is we sometimes smile in the face of very difficult things, it’s the way we are, we’re resilient like that.
‘For me, I’m constantly analysing myself for weaknesses and strengths and pains. Is it jealousy, rage, pain, sadness? Music for me is therapy, it always has been. As a three-year-old I used to sing myself to sleep.’
To him, ‘the personal can be universal’, as he added: ‘I learned that my personal stories can be extrapolated to many people and so I sing a personal story and people will get something out of it that pertains to their own lives.
‘I think that’s one of the charges of being a singer, if I ask you to come pay money to see me I have to do something for that and this is the sacrifice I have to bare my emotions sometimes.
‘It took me a while to get to that way because people will be able to figure out this poetry and figure it was me who cheated in that relationship, it was me who feels weak, vulnerable or jealous. But you have to be willing to go there.’
Revival is out now and All Rise is released 17 April.
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