Navy Blue on The Lyrics that Changed His Life

Words Matter is an interview series where songwriters whose work means a lot to us talk about the lyrics that mean a lot to them.

The Sir Render in the title of Sage Elsesser’s tenth studio album as Navy Blue is an amalgamation of himself and a real person. John was a man Elsesser met some years ago, whose spiritual forwardness disarmed him during one of the lowest points of his life. “I definitely see him as an angel,” he says. “I think we all have those experiences where somebody just shows up and God makes themselves known through the presence of this person. These people are put here to teach us something, and I don’t necessarily mean through a lens of divination. I just mean those kinds of people who make you feel seen when you don’t feel seen.”

Lessons gleaned from John and Elsesser’s own maturation over the last six years are the silk interior that lines his searingly reflective music. His most recent trilogy of albums—2024’s Memoirs in Armour, 2025’s The Sword and The Soaring, and Sir Render—has its share of bloodletting, but a deeper understanding of self from years of mental cleaning girds a budding peace of mind. That comes through in a knight motif inspired by the Robert Fisher novella The Knight in Rusty Armor, which follows the story of a soldier who becomes so attached to his identity as a warrior, he loses himself as a person. 

“The identity of a knight is someone who serves. It’s through the lens of the medieval, of course, but I’m attracted to the idea of Black knighthood. As Black men, it feels like we have this duty to ourselves and our community: Who am I supposed to be? versus Do I have the agency to be who I want to be? Who is that person?” For Sage, those questions began with nothing more than a suit of armor (Memoirs) and a sword (Soaring) before getting to the person behind both (Render). 

To complement the tone, Elsesser tapped the late actor James Earl Jones, who happens to be his older cousin, for narration before he passed away in 2024. He’d initially written a script for Jones to read, but a conversation with Jones’s son Flynn revealed that while the elder Jones was willing to support his younger cousin, his fading eyesight and loss of confidence in his iconic voice made it difficult. So instead Elsesser bookended songs with sampled audiobook recordings to flesh out the narrative. Jones’s booming voice can be heard echoing over production from Alchemist, Mike Shabb, and QThree, among others, across the album.

Though it’s last on the docket, Render is made up of the oldest songs in the trilogy, having come together over five years and a dozen different sequences. Several songs were recorded in Elsesser’s Brooklyn apartment with nothing more than a mic attached to his laptop. Others, like the Earl Sweatshirt collab “Belladonna” and “Circa,” featuring the late Brooklyn rapper Ka, were recorded at Alchemist’s studio in California. Having it out in the world is a relief, though he’s content to let its depths reveal themselves to listeners with time instead of breaking it down to the atoms. “In [the Yoruba religion] Ifa, there’s the concept of awo that’s doesn’t directly translate to ‘secret’, but it’s just the essence you’re supposed to hold of something you’re not supposed to speak about,” he explains. “It’s the magic, for lack of a better term. Once you speak about it too much, you lose the magic.” 

In lieu of digging too deep into his own work, Sage came to our series Words Matter with a lot to say about three very different artists. The seven songs he chose live deep in his bones, and are the bedrock to who he is  as a songwriter.           

Vashti Bunyan: “If I Were”

Navy Blue: Just Another Diamond Day is a cult classic. I know that record like the back of my hand. It came out in 1970 but didn’t sell very well, but in 2000, people rediscovered it and she caught a second wind. Because of the hippie household I grew up in, there was a lot of folk music around. I grew up hearing a lot of acoustic guitar. I think that’s something I’ve leaned into a lot. A lot of my mom’s best friends were this kind of white woman. It feels really comforting, I don’t know why. “Iris’s Song - Version Two” was my jam.   

With my fandom, I’m one of those listeners that once you’ve got me, I’m kinda just down for whatever you wanna do. She had a newer album called Heart Leap, but Lookaftering is the one where I was like whoa. I picked “If I Were” because her voice is matured here. The warmth that comes from recording to tape makes everything rounded in a way. There’s just this enchanting feeling like we’re being transported to this person’s world. The first lyrics on this song are “If I were to go away/Would you follow me to the ends of the Earth/Just to show me what your love is worth?” She has these funny trains of thought: “Or would you go and buy a car?/Shrug your shoulders, say ‘There you are/She didn’t love me anyway, if she had, she would’ve stayed.’” Her writing is so down the middle in a beautiful way. I don’t know her, but I feel like I know her. Those are my kind of artists where we have a connection, and I hope I do that for my listeners. 

Broadcast: “Tears In The Typing Pool”

I love Broadcast. Got introduced to them through listening to Stereolab as a kid. Actually, I wanna say I found Portishead first. I loved Beth Gibbons and Letita Sader. I’ve always felt connected to female vocalists. They have this warmth, especially in the manner in which they were making the music. I love, love, love, Trish Keenan, the lead singer of Broadcast. Her writing is definitely one of my biggest inspirations. In the opening moments of “Tears,” it’s right there: such a simple chord progression [hums opening], and the first thing she says is “Succumb to the line, the finishing time/The long distance runner has stopped on the corner/But I won’t give up, although I’ve stopped, too.” Sonically, that’s what introduced me to Trish Keenan’s music, but as I got older and really started hearing what she was saying and taking the music in through a literary lens, I was blown away. I know the words to these songs, but it’s different when you’re reading the words. 

I get that. Whenever I write about something, I like to listen to it by itself the first time and just take it in as a fan. Then, the second time, I listen with song lyrics in front of me. There’s really a difference in reading what someone is saying in a song versus hearing it. 

That’s how it should be. I believe this album was just James Cargill and Trish Keenan, them two together, and they go into that more 8-bit. They also released a demos tape where you can hear the true framework of how all these songs started. The lyric on this song that always gets me is when she says “Interpret the room as my tears in the typing pool/The letters are sighing, the ink is still drying.” The letters are sighing! The ink is the delicacy of that, the weight of the word. Like, I’m getting the words out, but you have to build a word with letters before you can complete it, and that’s such a distinct visual in my head. That taught me about breathwork in songs and when to let the silence speak.   

Ka: “Patron Saints”

I think beyond the lyrics, there’s an urgency here that I’d never heard in Ka’s voice before. And that flow! In the early parts where the sample is just keys and he comes in and says “All our Santas carry them hammers/Our guidance counselors was talented scramblers,” and then he get into this weird zone where he’s like “Spiritual leaders ran a number hold/Tycoons moved in vests and kept a money roll.” Here, he starts sprinting through “We brought the noise, gun'll bust, we ain’t altar boys.” He has this urgency that feels like lived experience, like I’m returning to the scene of the crime now. You can feel it in my voice. That’s why I picked this song specifically, because it was big inspiration to me. 

When Ka and I recorded “Circa” for Sir Render, I had already cut my verse because when you sent him songs, you couldn’t just send him the beat. He always wanted to hear what you did first. I remember sending him “Circa,” and he just responded “Yes.” Sometimes, he’d be like “Yo b, you killed this.” I’d ask if he wanted to get on it and he’d say “You did your thing, but this one ain’t for me.” I put up so many shots, but when you send one and he sends back a fire emoji or “Yes,” send the beat. We had cut it together at Al’s spot. I love “Circa” because it exemplifies our relationship. It feels kinda student and teacher on that song. I have that youthful “Hear me!” vibe, and I wanted that to be felt in how I performed the song. We had a rough one and I sent it to Ka, and he said “Yo, I’m gonna go back. I can make this better.” I’m like “No way this is perfect!” He said “Trust me.” Then I met up with him at the studio in LA where he was working on Thief and some other stuff, and he cut that in one take. It happened so quickly, and he was like “What you think?” I was like “...yo!”  

Ka: “I Need All That”

I’ve had the privilege of seeing Ka record some songs. I went to the studio to record “We Livin’” with him, and it was us, Mimi [Valdes, Ka’s wife], and [producer] Preservation there. They were always there. He had cut so many joints that day, but he did “I Need All That” and it was coming out of the speakers in the main room, and it was like the recording. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it. He came out the booth like “What y’all think?,” and we’re all like…I can only imagine how many times Mimi and Pres saw him record, and I’m grateful I had the privilege of seeing that. Bro…I don’t know who said the first words but it was just like “Yo…this is special.” I remember him standing by the double doors that go into the booth, and he played the beat. He recorded the verse, and I can feel exactly what I felt then right now. All I could say to him—and this is verbatim—was “Ka, I think that’s your best song ever.” 

It embodies all of what he stood for in terms of how much he loved his Blackness and how much he loved Black people. What a hook! “My chance, my stance, my soul.” And then there’s this piano stab at the beginning, and I remember Pres being like “Yo, what if we add that right there.” Then he comes right in with “Enemy to many, wasn’t equipped to be a friend.” I remember witnessing this as a fan and being like “Oh my God.” It’s something I’ll cherish forever, I was starstruck. When I listen to the song, I don’t even transport back to that moment because that’s it’s own moment. Being there for the recording of the song vs. listening to the song. And then he has Nina [Simone] at the end of the song. He loved Nina Simone. What a fucking song. “My culture, my music, my look/They took how we greet, how we speak, how we cook.” I can do my best to explain what he’s doing on that song. He’s lingering behind the beat in a way that someone might consider offbeat—I don’t believe in offbeat. He’s behind the one, but doing it so gracefully; it’s like the beat is warping around him, like the music is trying to catch up with him. He’s wearing the beat like it’s a nylon trench coat. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Ka mastered that. 

Ka: “I Wish (Death Poem)”

I knew when I heard Days With Dr. Yen Lo, it was special, but Honor Killed The Samurai took me to a different place. Honor did for me what The Giver by Lois Lowry did for me as a child. I was like “Oh, this is what a book can do. I’m in these pages.” I truly felt like Honor was mine. I listened to that album so much, I barely knew the titles of the songs; I just knew the album. I wanted to highlight an outro because this one felt like something special. The simplicity of that statement—”I wish we didn’t have to live like this.” I could feel the pain. He meant that. It wasn’t just a rhyme. I know he was someone who felt deeply about that; that the world was tough, a sad place to have to exist in. I could feel what he’d been through without the explanation. Having “Death Poem” in parentheses to put a point on what he’s alluding to, too. Such a poetic and romantic way for a samurai to admit defeat. That guitar on that song and the way the cymbals are riding. I have this imagery of a samurai riding into his last battle. Such vivid imagery. 

When I heard “I Wish,” it took me back to when I first knew I was a Ka superfan when I heard “30 Keys.” “I wish we didn’t have live like this” felt so connected to “Fuck your family, somebody got rich off mine/That’s the truth, dinner was instant soups.” He’s talking about being hungry: “I was bitter as the ripest lime/Saw the only niggas living lived a life of crime/Jumper wasn’t wet enough, too rushed to write a rhyme/Since I was the only son, it was time to shine.” “I Wish” took me back to that. In light of his passing, you take it for what it is. 

Another thing I learned from Ka is that he didn’t cuss much on record. But when he did, it was impactful. That’s the thing about Sir Render: it’s a lot of older raps so there’s cussing in there. I try not to do that at all anymore, but when you do, it has to have weight. On “I Wish,” Ka says “If anything move through, who you? Fuck you want?...The high was getting money money, never had to puff a blunt.” I wanted to highlight a song that encapsulated the importance of an outro. It completes the arc. It was either gonna be this or “Having Nothing” from A Martyr’s Reward. “Having nothing gave me everything.” Nobody does it like Ka, man.   

Ka: “Finer Things / Tamahagene”

When I first heard Honor, “Mourn at Night” was my one. I love “Finer Things,” and I love his usage of guitar. It always felt like…these might kinda be folks albums. These are blues albums. The well he was drawing from and the records he was digging through was different. The lines that stand out on this song are in those first moments: “I’m going to the forest to pray/Temptations racing, hoping this make it harder to stray.” That line directly inspired “Crux Ansata” from Sir Render where I say “Have you ever gone the distance and felt distant?/Have you ever prayed and felt no different?” That was a direct Ka inspiration. Sometimes he’d ask me what I’m working on, and when I sent him that song, he said “Yes. I’ma write to this, send me this beat.” I would’ve loved to have heard Ka on “Crux,” that would’ve been amazing. 

In his catalog, where there’s split songs like “We Living / Martyr,” I always go back and listen to that second half. “Finer Things” is three minutes and 50 seconds, and then “Tamahagene” comes in. I think that second half, that feels like the album to me. I love when he did that double time on “Tamahagene” that I love. “I’m in my twilight, getting right with the lord.” I have my own interpretation of what that means to me. It feels like such a reward getting to that song, and then you hear “I Wish.” What a reward making it through that song and then the sample from the book comes in at the end. What a song. 

Even before his passing, Honor seemed to become the definitive Ka album for so many people. It’s clearly his most popular one. When I talk to people about him, that’s the album it usually comes back to. 

I also feel like Honor was the beginning of this saga where he just found what the whole Ka project would be. Honor was also the first of his self-produced albums where he, like, truly found it. I think that’s the importance of it. I have the varsity jacket and the hoodie. These are things I’ll cherish forever. 

Ka: “Eat”

Food has been this through line theme of Ka’s music. The importance of it, how much we need it. That beat is so haunting. “Skeletons hanging out to dry, just mumbles now.” Everything is considered in this song. I love his pseudo unc bars like “Throughout prohibition of bars, I speak easy.” But it’s so specific, like, I speak easy, there’s strength in what I say. Ka taught me that. The first thing you say, that’s the important moment. “My wealth is word and self is certain, the meek need me.” This song is special because I feel like, for me, it helped me to step into my purpose. I’m needed. My voice is needed. Only I can acknowledge that. I can be told I’m important and needed, but if I don’t believe it, what’s the point? 

He’s content, and “Eat” captures a lot of what he often talks about. On “Circa,” he says “Sick and wicked world whether flat or sphere/It appears the establishment only wanna establish fear/Correct, protecting you and yours is all that matters here/Believe I could even reason with a demon if I had his ear/Put it all on the line, receiving more than my last career.” On the third verse of “Eat,” he was very conscious of how much evil there was in the world. I appreciated that he met the evils of the world with understanding, grace, like a kind of grace that you can’t be taught. The way he spoke to it was profound. Aside from my grandfather, Ka made me feel so empowered as a Black man. I’ve never questioned my Blackness, but Ka really would say “Your voice is needed.” He was vocal and supportive in that way. After his passing, I lived in Languish Arts and Woeful Studies.