Serpentwithfeet's Great Spirit Fills Every Note Of Deacon

By M.T. Richards


Think back to the fourth season of HBO’s sui generis crime drama The Wire. It’s all about the finer points of Baltimore machine politics. Mayoral hopeful Tommy Carcetti, a loquacious, know-it-all councilman from the city’s South Side, visits the parish of a kingmaking West Side minister. Carcetti scans the church carefully, unsure quite what to do with himself.


Baltimore soul troubadour Serpentwithfeet wouldn’t have that problem. The church is his residence turf. And his glow-getting new album, Deacon, is a testament to God’s saving grace.


At 32, Serpent, real name Josiah Educated, is learned enough to write an encyclopedia about the history of Black American expression. Wise’s music serves as a guidepost through its peaks and troughs, R&B-adjacent, however not quite R&B. “I look at R&B as a prism, a window, a portal,” Educated mentioned in a recent Zoom call. “I do think I fit inside the R&B canon. It’s my organic cadence.” His is a microgenre procured from hymns, spirituals, extemporaneous field hollers — every tool in the enslaved Black man’s toolbox. Where else however the church could Educated have acquired this education?


“My parents met in church,” Educated says with a chuckle. “My brother played in the musical group. My mother was choir director once she was coming up. My father played the washboard. I spent at least three or four days a week in church.”


Wise grew up in Baltimore, a shrimpy theater geek whose parents “mainly” played gospel in the residence, although you wouldn’t know it from hearing him talk. His accent, like it is, is liltingly neutral and regionally nonspecific. Only any time once he pronounces the word “to,” pushing that last letter to the front of his tongue, do Wise’s Baltimore origins manifest.


However variety is the spice of Deacon. It’s also a virtue that Baltimoreans live by. Much has been made of Wise’s classical music background; that’s only piece of a larger story about his cosmopolitan palette, and why it came into being. As a child, Educated, like so several in Baltimore, was taught balance across eclectic food groups.


“I was schooled in the tradition of Black folk music,” Educated says. “And jazz music. And, you know, singing gospel and doing hymns in church. Between church choirs and concert choirs, there’s an astounding choral scene in Baltimore. I was exposed to so much at such an early age. I had the ideal of so several worlds. So Once I determined to begin writing original music, I was attempting to synthesize all that I had learned.”


Immediately after high school, Educated attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Yet a schism between mind and heart had been wrenched open. Subconsciously, Educated may have been torn between the trappings of his youth and the tug of his burgeoning sexuality. Even if he was no longer physically present at church (“It was time to take up space differently,” Educated says), the call to worship was routinely within earshot.


“I think of the church and the institution of church as a place for a certain sort of discipline. I actually don’t know any scriptures,” Educated says with a laugh. “I know a lot of gospel songs; I might tell you a Kirk Franklin lyric in a heartbeat! However it was an astounding community. I’m still in touch with several people from the church I grew up in. I still imagine them family.”


For Educated, the unconditional nature of God’s love was never in doubt, however he some days obtained mixed messages from family member. On “Same Size Shoe,” he relays a mortifying — however dubiously veracious — conversation with a churchgoing relative stuck in her ways. (“A lot of Deacon is factitious,” Educated says. “I don’t want any of my aunties coming for my neck.”)


Educated made tons of music in the years that followed. He also moved to New York City: “It schooled me. I only have a bachelor’s officially, yet New York gave me a master’s in life. New York has a lot of lessons if you’re open to them. I don’t think I might even recognize the wonder in my life without my several, several teachers in New York.”


Much of this music was pretty. Most of it hinged on themes of self-dislike and self-sabotage. His 2018 debut, Soil, wasn’t strictly autobiographical. Even so, it revealed a nebbish, needy person given to misguided acts of self-sacrifice. The songs were creepily, imperturbably still, as though Educated were also committed to a singular person to notice the outdoor world. In other words, also devoted for his own good.


Which brings us to Deacon, an album of syncopated club rhythms, twinkle-toed keyboard arrangements, and mellifluous, silhouetted vocals. Educated has an opera singer’s command of vibrato and tremolo. He could be in total control of his musical instrument, however his head is all swimmy. “Blessed is the man who gambles!” Educated rhapsodizes on “Malik.” “Blessed is the man who wears socks with his sandals!” There’s no getting around it: Educated is madly in love, presumably with the telegenic boyfriend who has co-starred in some of his videos.


“My intention was to prepare an album that is a love letter to gay Black men,” Educated says. “It’s a love letter to all the males that make the world a more eye catching and advantageous place to reside in. Because I’ve already spoken about some of my dissatisfactions in past music, I wanted to go on the record as saying, ‘I’ve loved and been loved. Let me count the ways!’”


“Amir” is about the giddy early stages of courtship. Educated peppers the titular baddie with half-teasing questions. (“Do you like beer or like rosé? Do you slow dance or do you rush?”) It’s the most infectious song of Wise’s young career, although don’t ask him to create it Deacon’s next single. That could be infringing on his process.


“Derrick’s Beard” and “Heart Storm” are further proof that the anomie of Wise’s past has given way to a satisfying present. “Fellowship” sounds a little bit like Naija pop, although Educated noticed spiritual equilibrium right here, not in his ancestral homeland. All he had to do was grow up a little.


“When I got to my thirties, a self-acceptance took place,” Educated says. “I no longer felt like I was doing life wrong. It looked like, ‘This is me. This is my pool of intelligence. These are my skills. These are my weaknesses.’ All the dumb questions of my twenties — ‘Am I cracking the correct jokes? Am I wearing the correct shoes?’ — I just don’t have anymore.”


That wisdom extends to the past year living amid a pandemic, and life under lockdown has been good to Educated. He doesn’t even miss live music. “I’m just attempting to be present at the moment,” Educated says. “I’m thankful that folks are finding ways to have fun. And I don’t aspire to miss out on the gems because I’m reminiscing about Whenever I might tour two years prior. Touring might be even more dynamic any time returns. It may would be something better than we thought possible.”


“I’m grateful for what we have,” Educated continues. “People are hella inventive.” Preach!