Sayotheartist releases ‘For Your Glory’ like you’ve never heard her… But as exactly who she is.
According to the gospel artist;
” This song is different and I wanted you, dear reader, to see it differently too. So, I asked my older sister, Oluwaseun Olowo-Ake, Writer/Editor, storytoculture.com to write about it, because she has a way with words. Enjoy.” – Sayotheartist.
Oluwaseun Olowo-Ake;
” I was on a video call with Sayo in early September when she sent me this song to listen to. We were having our usual conversations about being Christians in varying secular art spaces, our defensiveness of said spaces coming through, when she sent me the song, prefacing the listening experience I was about to have with, “it’s the song of my dreams.”
High praise.
I hung up so that I could fully immerse myself in this ‘song of dreams,’ and after hearing it, I can say that Sayo couldn’t have described it better.
It is the song of her dreams.
Sayo’s taste in music is a little different than that of our other sisters, Sola, and I. While we all hop around different genres, Sayo frequents the discography of the likes of Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, The Teskey Brothers, and Leon Bridges, adding that to her love for Afrobeats- because we are Nigerian.
So, when I heard this Afro-soul song with the drums and guitar at the intro; the vocals and cascading harmonies in the background; and the trumpets (!) I went, “of course, she makes a song like this,” but also, “that’s my sister.
What?!”
I called her back with my hand over my mouth because I was mind-blown and, after some hyping up, we went off into another conversation, one I think is reflected in this song.
For Your Glory is a song about complete surrender. “Everything I have will be for Your purposes, everything I own will be [for Your purposes],” are some of the first lines Sayo sings before she goes on to repeat, “Lord I give my heart.”
With this song, she is inviting God to reign over everything: her talents, her interests, her work, and her relationships. She is doing something I think is more meaningful where redemption is concerned. Instead of having the box that says, ‘Sunday/God Interests’ and the one that reads, ‘Others,’ she’s brought them all together and put them under God, trusting that He is good and can be trusted with everything.
But it is also in doing that, I think, that we truly see God as a ‘Redeemer’: that is, that He takes people/things back and makes them holy. Sayo highlights this with the Yoruba line, “ibi ti mo ti ri Jesu dada” – “here, I have seen Jesus clearly.”
Also, I have to shout out Producer, Féz ! This man put his whole foot into the production, and OL Creative, for the crisp engineering.
Soothing. Heavenly. Soulful.” – Oluwaseun Olowo-Ake (Sayotheartist Older Sister).
‘For Your Glory’ was produced by Féz, mixed & mastered by OL Creative, and photographed by Ariella Horvath.