The screen opens black with white letters: S.O.U.L. Of A Black Woman. But the words almost dance in front of the viewer because of the music playing at the same time. The movie is an Afro-futurism film, directed and co-produced by RCL Graham. Greenbelt’s James McKinney worked as a co-producer, but more importantly wrote the composition and sound design for the film.
The score evokes east and west African rhythms, chants, melodies and harmonies. The sound is a character in the film, McKinney explains, and the goal for a film composer is to enhance not overwhelm. “For S.O.U.L. Of A Black Woman I really dug deep,” he said, exploring traditional African music. He also came to appreciate the depth that film composers John Williams and Bill Lee add by creating themes for the characters that give the audience hints of the action to come. His efforts paid off, winning McKinney the Best Composer award from the Charlotte Film Festival in 2020.
McKinney came to Greenbelt nearly three decades ago via Howard University where he studied music education. In his native Florida, he performed in a couple of boy bands and danced. “I think I wanted to be a super star,” he said laughing a little at the memory, “but my real passion was making music and playing.” At Howard, he thought about majoring in performance, but found the music education major gave him more. “Music education is not something to fall back on” as his college advisors told him, “but rather it is part of my journey to becoming a successful musician.”
And by most measures, McKinney is very successful. He has performed for three U.S. presidents and he has two Grammy-nominated performances in 2009 and 2011, including for the current rising R&B songstress Carolyn Malachi. More recently, McKinney produced the Congressional Black Caucus’s Tribute to Stevie Wonder featuring several artists including Doug E. Fresh, Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick.
He and his wife Evelyn have raised their children here and supported the schools their children attended. He walks frequently – “I have walked the lake a million times,” he said – and, during Covid-19, performance gigs have dried up so he has even more time to walk. But he has also kept busy working as a composer. He sits at his desk and keyboard and imagines what his music will do to the film or short spot. Once he gets other musicians to play, he can hear if his plans worked. When they do, he said, it is a moment of bliss.
“You don’t know until you hear it if it’s going to work and if it’s going to be what you thought,” he said. When it works,” he said. “I’m touching God, or God is touching me. It’s amazing.”
Caribbean Recordings
Which brings him to another project, building studios so others can learn to do what he does.
McKinney and his business partner Scott Jacoby own Eusonia Records with recording studios in New York City. Six years ago, Eusonia was invited to be a consultant on a nonprofit project, Anguilla Musical Academy (AMA). The goal of AMA: to build world-class studios and engineering school in Anguilla, an island nation east of Puerto Rico.
“We went down there and said this is paradise, how can we say no?” So he and his partner would go to the island monthly. Now the state-of-the-art studios are completed, the school is ready, and a Grammy Museum highlights the world’s finest musicians. McKinney said the whole project is ready to launch once Covid-19 is over. “We want to be able to give the youth of the Caribbean the option to stay in their court and learn.”
Grammy Projects
In the meantime, he is also working with the state-side Grammy projects including the charity MusiCares, which helps musicians, including the many in Nashville who were hurt by the tornados last winter.
The Grammy meetings with musicians, engineers and producers who work on the Grammys are an important part of his career – and his calling. “Those meetings have put me in the room with my heroes,” he said naming the engineer, Ed Cherney, who recorded Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Through these meetings he met jazz great – the Godfather of Go-go, Chuck Brown – and eventually was asked to produce a record. “I don’t think that would have happened if we hadn’t sat in a board room.”
McKinney said that all the different projects he has going are part of being a working musician. And all of them are worth the effort for the moments when everything comes together. “I am really blessed. Some of it is innate ability, some of it is hard work, and then there is the special magic.”