Words: Adenike Derrick

Sarah Kelly is the multi-Grammy nominated artist whose passionate, emotive and reflective music allows the listener to relate to each word sung. Kelly has just released her third album Born to Worship; an album that incorporates all of her past experiences and reflects where she currently is in her life both musically and personally. Kelly spoke to us about her new album, what music means to her and what we can expect in the future.

SB: Tell us about Born to Worship
SK: Born to Worship is a collection of what most people put out in their "first album". You see, most people put out their best songs first. Well, the first album was just supposed to be an album for my church and I wrote most of those songs with a good friend a month before we recorded it. The second CD I wrote with major songwriters in LA so I have never gotten a chance to get the "heart songs", the "real me" before all the hoopla out.  These are the songs that I wrote when I was young, some as early as seven or eight. (Songs) that my church and other churches around the nations started singing way before I was a "singer", that is why I named it "Born to Worship".

SB: Who have you enjoyed most working with on this album and why?
SK: I would have to say that would be a two-way tie between Brandon Culvey, guitar player {mosgoogle left} extraordinaire (as well as my road manager and one of my best friends). I wrote a couple of the newer tracks with Brandon and Mitch Dane, whose musical genius seriously has me shaking my head.  I brought him so many songs and we cut and pasted those things together till they were exactly right! Talk about a fun and relaxed environment to make music in. It was like a dream.

SB: Do you have a favourite track from the album?
SK: My personal favourite is "Sit with You Awhile" because it is truly the theme song of my whole life.  I wrote the first verse and chorus of that when I was really really young (about seven or eight) and when I am alone at home, that is the one I sing first when it is just me and God.  I wrote it from the perspective of Mary when her sister Martha was busy working and she just sat with Jesus. I have always wanted to be like that!

SB: How has your music changed or grown since your debut release?
SK: My music is always changing. The first album was "a cry for help through hard times". The second is me facing my past and the third, this one, is on the other side of the trials and seeing God's faithfulness through it all. My albums are truly a mirror to my soul and I get bored pretty easily so the music is always changing. Who wants to buy the same album twice anyways? Right?

SB: How important has music been in your life?
SK: Music is truly what God used in my life to save me from my own "self-hate". I started writing at such a young age and it has always been my most honest connection to God. You can't lie in music, it sounds really stupid so it leaves no choice but honesty. Later in my life that self-hate had led me to physically abusive relationships and it ended up being music that helped get me out of that.  Music was where I declared my faith, that God would somehow see me through that and God gave me the confidence to get out of that once and for all through music.

SB: What messages do you want to put across through your music?
SK: There are a few messages I carry in my pocket wherever I go. I want for women that have been physically abused to know they are not alone. One in four of us girls have been and one in three of us have been raped so there is no need to feel like we are so alone in this. Another thing is God loves worship from brokenness; that once a person has been marked by this world through abuse or our own mistakes that does not mean that God does not want to hear our worship or that it isn't valid to him. He loves us so much and doesn't love "perfect people" any more. In fact they have their own areas of pain that they are just hiding many times. So I sing to everyone the same, whether it is in a club or church or wherever. We all need God that is the bottom line. Finally, my dream is just to provide some of the sound track that sees people through the highest highs and lowest lows of life...a "friend" along the way. 

Comments (2)

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written by Gods Princess, April 03, 2008

Thanks Adenike. Good read.

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written by Jordan, April 07, 2008

'God loves worship from brokenness', we don;'t need to be perfect to come to him. he just wants us to be willing. Thanks Sarah and for the interview Nike/Streetbrand.

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