“‘Soul Cries Out’ is a lament and a prayer,” drummer James Gaiters says. “I wrote that song after Michael Brown was shot and seeing the footage of him lying in the street for hours, you know, just like – and then the riots afterward. I cried that day. I had kind of had enough, you know.
“And so that feeling, that melody,” he continues, “came about as sort of a prayer to God, like, how much more do we have to take? At the same time, I feel a sense of encouragement from that song, as well. But that’s where that song was going.”
Read more from our interview with the members of Watu Utungo.