The Legacy Series cuts through the static to pay dues to the departed masters. In this installment, Legendary soul artist Syl Johnson channeled a lifelong spirit of defiance into a deeply influential music career—sparked by a childhood passion for the guitar and the natural sounds around him—and later used that same resilience to fight for the reclamation of his family’s stolen land.

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Sounds Visual: Tell me about when your interest in guitar started.

Syl Johnson: My brother was friends with Matt “Guitar” Murphy, who was a good little guitar player. They were older men than me. My brother was learning how to play guitar from Matt Murphy. So I was young, and he said, “I’ll put that guitar up in the closet.” He said, “You better not touch it.” Shit. But I did. I was agile; I had to get it out and play it.

When they’d leave, and go out into the fields, I didn’t go to the field until my mom went after she fixed dinner and lunch. I had to mess with that guitar [while they were in the fields.] First, my brother used to have a [homemade] guitar built, sitting on the side of the house. We used to stay and play that. It was bad. That’s how I got into it. I liked it.

You know, I used to listen to the birds sing. I would listen to the birds; they made all kinds of sounds. I used to sit out and listen to them. The mockingbird, he’d be making more than one sound. But a dove would go, “Ooh, ooh,” and then some birds would go “Chippe-ew-wa, Chippe-ew-wa.” And some would just tweet. But the mockingbird, you’re gonna get all kinds of sounds from him. That’s why you call him the mockingbird. In other words, I think he’d be mocking the other birds. So that’s how I picked up on sound—listening to the birds make different sounds when I was very young, very young.

SV: Syl, do you happen to remember the first time you performed in public, or your first gig?

SJ: It was a school play. There was my friend who played harmonica. His brother’s name is Slick Johnson—and he’s still alive, Slick Charles Johnson. He’s my brother’s friend right now. They congregate together, and he’s married to my first cousin.

In 1950, Syl Johnson moved with his family to Chicago, where he happened to live next door to blues guitarist Magic Sam. This proximity kicked off years of collaborations, with Syl singing and playing alongside blues legends like Magic Sam, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells, and Howlin’ Wolf. By 1959, Johnson had recorded with Jimmy Reed for Vee-Jay Records and launched his solo debut, “Teardrops,” with Federal Records (a subsidiary of Cincinnati’s King Records).

By the mid-1960s, he transitioned to Twinight Records, scoring his first major hit in 1967 with “Come On Sock It to Me.”

That same year, Johnson recorded “Different Strokes,” a scorching soul track featuring an iconic opening drum break that would later be sampled over 300 times by hip-hop royalty like the Wu-Tang Clan, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, and EPMD.

As the decade came to a close, Johnson—like many Black songwriters of the era—began tackling themes of African American identity and social injustice. His poignant 1969 track, “Is It Because I’m Black?”, peaked at number 11 on the Billboard R&B chart, cementing its place alongside “Different Strokes” as one of his signature, deeply influential, and heavily sampled masterpieces.

SJ: It’s a well-respected song. It’s not militant. Because I’ll tell you why: it didn’t sound like “Black and Proud”—that’s militant. “Am I Black Enough for You?“—that’s really tough, that’s militant.

Some silly things just happened to me as a human being in this country of ours. Is it because my face is smudgy that it stops you from being my buddy? That’s how I introduce my song a lot of times. It’s got a deep message.

In 1971, producer Willie Mitchell brought Johnson over to Hi Records, for which he recorded three albums, generating a number of singles—including “Take Me to the River,” his biggest success, reaching number seven on the R&B chart in 1975.

After his years with Hi Records ended, Johnson continued to write and record. Around the mid-1980s, he started a fast-food fish restaurant and mostly retired from performing. In 1992, Johnson discovered that his music was being sampled by a new generation of hip-hop artists, stimulating his interest in making a comeback in the music industry.

SV: Syl, tell me what happened when you first discovered that your music was being sampled.

SJ: Well, I was talking to a lawyer friend who said, “You can’t do too much.” Then I talked to a couple more friends, and then I got a friend—but she was just killed in a car accident here in Chicago—Linda Mensch. She was my lawyer. She started a suit for some other talent, part of which was before a judge.

And when I was talking to her, she said, “Oh, if I can hear it, the judge can hear it. If the judge can hear it, they had no business using your music right now.” Everybody who was involved in it is guilty—even the ones shrink-wrapping it. It’s pretty big music as well. And so, she was right.

I was outstanding when I was young, and I made some great music. They don’t sample it because they’re dumb; they sample it because they’re smart. The young people. They know what’s good better than we do—that’s the way I look at it. They sample my music in all different ways now.

Above: Wu-Tang Clan’s “Hollow Bones,” which samples Johnson’s “Is It Becuase I’m Black?”

SV: Looking back on this incredible career that you’ve had, what do you think it is or was about your music that made you stand apart from the pack?

SJ: Being able to hear, in my heart and soul and mind, what other people would like. See, you can’t make a hit if you can’t hear a hit. Some stuff is real good, but it ain’t no hit. You’ve got to be able to hear a hit in your soul. You have to know within your heart, your soul, your mind, and your gut that the people are gonna like this. If you aren’t able to hear what you think the people might like, you’ll go out that way and waste your money. It might sound real good, but the people just won’t pick up on it.

But you see, my passion is for my mom and dad. They ushered me to do it. I am not trying to make money, but I would like ten acres of land and a John Deere tractor with all the ploughs to it. Look at what happened in America—it would be the greatest thing that happened to the earth. Now, why me? You know why me? Because people know me around the world. So I can get answers around the world. My name around the world is much more popular than it is in America.

In 2019, Johnson published a book called Is It Because They Were Black? 100 Years of Fraud and Forgery. In it, he wrote a true story from the oral history of his own family, indicting individuals in the public and government sectors who stole land from African American landowners—a practice that occurred not only in Mississippi, but throughout the South.

SV: You’ve spoken powerfully about your journey of reclamation regarding your family’s stolen land in Mississippi, refusing to let that history be buried.

SJ: Reclamation is the journey that I’m on. It’s much better than reparations. I didn’t want it to be a witch hunt, but a proud effort because of my mom and my dad. My dad and his three uncles—his dad lost his land to a kind of fraud. If you read the benediction in the book, it’ll make you mad. Buy the book!

The book says it like this: They lost their land in Mississippi because they were black. Section 6 and 24, Township 2, Range 2, Marshall County, Mississippi. Mississippi is guilty. Marshall County is guilty for recording the deeds that they recorded on our land. For my grandfather and his three brothers’ land.

My past year there was spent bringing to fruition what they did to my grandfather and his three brothers a hundred years ago. They put them out of their houses into the street. Out of their houses into the street, and they could do nothing about it. All they had on their backs were their clothes.

SV: Before we wrap up here, do you have any message you’d like to send to your fans?

SJ: One thing is thank you, and buy my book. It’ll be very, very fruitful to you, and you will enjoy what you read. I don’t need money. I don’t need money because I’ve got some money.

SV: Syl, thanks for sharing some of your memories with me.

SJ: Thank you, Justin. Thank you.

Syl Johnson passed away on February 6, 2022.