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When PJ Morton published his 2024 memoir Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Staying True to Myself from the Pews to the Stage, he had no intention of writing a double album bearing the same title.
“I was searching for why I wanted to make music this time around,” he explains to Billboard ahead of its Juneteenth release. “Doing a regular new R&B album wasn’t super appealing or inspiring to me. And on the gospel side, I had taken a step back from my own music and started working with La Reezy and Darrel Walls. Then the concept of a double came to me, and that’s what got me inspired and out of bed.”
Loosely informed by sprawling albums like Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life and Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers — but primarily inspired by his own oscillation between secular and sacred spaces throughout his career — Saturday Night, Sunday Morning bridges every piece of Morton’s artistry. After stepping away from his own solo music last year, he headed to his countryside studio in Bogalusa, Louisiana this January to bring his latest LP to life.
On the Saturday Night side, which opens the album, the six-time Grammy winner gives in to his penchant for reggae rhythms on “Don’t Give Up on Us,” takes early naysayers and doubters to task on the quietly scathing “Listened to You” and delves into the particularly vulnerable space of early romantic courtship on the R&B-rooted album opener “Mutual.” Grammy-nominated jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold (“Mess”) and West London singer-songwriter Rukhsana Merrise (“Autopsy”) also appear as the sole guest artists on either side of the double album.
For Sunday Morning, Morton delivered what he considers his first proper gospel album, because “it’s the first one where I’m singing the songs all by myself.” From drawing on the scripture recounting the woman with the issue of blood (“Close Enough”) to lush harmonies that evoke the intricate arrangements of Grammy-nominated contemporary gospel group Commissioned, Morton seamlessly shifts from R&B to gospel on the album’s back half, calling back to a tradition that reverberates across the Black experience.
“I approached these less as a double-album and more as two separate albums,” he says. “I expected to switch between writing R&B and gospel songs, but every time I tried to write, it would be straight gospel, so I just locked in and wrote that whole side of the project. One crazy, random thing that happened is that both sides of the album have a runtime of 29 minutes and 14 seconds.”
That kind of divine alignment defines the entire Saturday Night, Sunday Morning rollout. Once Morton realized how quickly the album was coming together, he pushed to secure Juneteenth (June 19) as the official release date. The day before the album hits streaming platforms (June 18), he will host a listening party for the new record at the National Museum of African-American Music in Nashville, which named him its 2026 Grand Marshal of Black Music Month, complete with a career-spanning exhibition that traces his incredible evolution and dedication to Black music history. In addition to his Grand Marshal duties, he’s scored a handful of nominations at the forthcoming BET Awards and Stellar Awards — resulting in an already major 2026 for Morton.
“I’ve always been the young buck in my crew, so to have a look back is kind of weird, but very rewarding,” he reflects. “Sometimes things align, and you can’t even control how great they fit together.”
Below, Billboard chats with Morton about how his excellent new album came together, what his trip to Africa unlocked for him and the formative advice he received from Kirk Franklin.
After literally going from Cape Town to Cairo for the last album, did you always plan for the next record to be closer to home?
Cape Town to Cairo almost didn’t happen because I wanted to stop after Watch the Sun. I wanted to take a break, but the opportunity came, and my label was like, “Would you want to go to Africa and work?” I was supposed to go to South Africa for the first time in March 2020 right around when the pandemic shut the world down, so I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. We did that album in 30 days across four different countries in Africa. That was a big challenge, so I went to work on other people’s music as a producer and writer. I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Was the plan always to drop on Juneteenth?
I didn’t have Juneteenth in mind initially, but once I saw fast things were coming together in January and that Juneteenth fell on a Friday, I knew we had to try and snag that date. Ultimately, to me, this album is what our Black experience has been for a long time. Not everyone, but for the majority of people. Historically, we worked hard during the week, used Saturday night to decompress and used Sunday morning to recharge. And Juneteenth is also my mother’s birthday, so it’s always been special.
What was your biggest challenge in striking a balance between the sacred and the secular that felt respectful and authentic to yourself for this album?
I’ve been auditioning for this album my whole life. Gospel gave me my start, so I have a deep respect for it; I’m a preacher’s kid, so I literally grew up in that space. Those artists know me and have seen me, so when I decided that I didn’t want to do gospel music as an artist, I was always mindful of keeping my tribe. I always let them know that I’m gonna make music we love the same way my dad would play Anita Baker or Stevie Wonder in the house. This is in the tradition of that. It’s not stepping away from God; this is admitting that God is the biggest creator. He can inspire a love song, just like he can inspire love itself. I’ve always been careful with that balance.
Kirk Franklin once told me, “As long as Jesus is in the room sitting next to you and it feels okay, then you’re all right.” If I’m being the person I’m supposed to be and living the way I’m supposed to live, then the art should reflect that. And this doesn’t happen as much, but in the beginning, I had a lot of people telling me what I shouldn’t do, and there’s a song about that on Saturday Night called “Listened to You.” I’ve always been sensitive to that and wanted all my people to be able to enjoy the music I make.
What song would you say unlocked Saturday Night and got you in the groove of writing R&B records again?
Because I was in producer mode, I was making beats without thinking they were songs for me. I had “Mutual” and “Don’t Give Up on Us” for a little while; I knew they were jamming. Those two made me feel like this could form into something. It usually takes me about two or three songs to get into that groove. The R&B album was more challenging because I’ve done so many of them. It was definitely a challenge to say something I hadn’t said before in a way I’ve never said before.
The reggae groove on “Don’t Give Up on Us” definitely gave Saturday Night.
That’s what Africa did for me — that trip unlocked the fact that everything goes back to Africa. When I was in Nigeria, I felt so at home with the horns and the way they were dancing. When I got back home, everything I looked at was Africa. When I hear Bob [Marley] talk about Fela [Kuti], I get that it really all goes back to Africa. I have always been connected to Caribbean rhythms, but reggae, specifically, has always touched me deeply. My bass player always says that I could do a whole reggae set of songs [inspired by the genre] from my catalog.
“Close Enough” feels like the centerpiece of Sunday Morning. Do you find yourself more often reaching for scripture or personal experiences when writing gospel songs?
It’s a combination. I don’t reach for scripture specifically, but I think those stories resonate with me. I consider Sunday Morning my first gospel album, because it’s the first one where I’m singing the songs all by myself. I grew up hearing, “If I could get close enough that I could touch the hem of your garment,” or “Almost lost my life, but you made old death go away,” or “Your unmerited favor.”
Since I haven’t had albums to say these kinds of messages, I wanted to do it here. I’m missing them. Gospel music has changed so much over the years. This was my love letter to the stuff I grew up on, like Commissioned and Andraé Crouch.
We have a couple of guests on this album, but it’s a largely solo affair. Was that intentional?
It was intentional, but also reactive. I shot for everything on Watch the Sun. We had Stevie, Nas, Jill Scott, Alex Isley, El DeBarge and Wale on that album. I also swung for the fences with my last gospel effort, which has Kirk, Yolanda Adams, Tasha Cobbs-Leonard, J. Moss, Commissioned and the Clark Sisters. I knew I probably needed to say more myself this time. And I’d shot for my dream collaborations and gotten all of them. Well, Kendrick [Lamar] is busy, I suppose. He’s one of the few I would still love to do something with. But I wanted to focus on my own internal conversations this time.
What’s one of your most memorable Saturday night-Sunday morning moments?
[In 2019], I played the Super Bowl and then won my first Grammy the next Sunday. But that was two Sundays. [Laughs]. My band and I have been on the grind for so many years, and there have been many times where we finish a gig on Saturday night and need to make it to church Sunday morning and play for the choir and be of service there. That had been our lives for so many years.
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