And the Welcome everyone to Soda Jaker on songwriting. I Simon Barber, and I'm Brian O'Connor.

And joining us for episode 229 is a hugely talented Grammy-winning musician, singer, songwriter and producer who first emerged in the early 2000s.

As well as forging a highly impressive solo career,

he's recorded and performed with the likes of Maroon 5,

India R.E. Stevie Wonder, Jill Scott, John Batiste, L. L. Kool J. Erica Boudou, and Buster Rhymes.

Via his own label, Morton Records, he's just dropped a superb new album, Watch The Sun, and he spoke to us all about it recently from his home in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We're very happy to welcome the excellence PJ Morton to the show.

Our guest was born Paul Morton Jr. in 1981 in New Orleans and raised in the east of the city.

He had designs on being a musician from an early age and his father Paul also a renowned gospel singer and his mother Deborah are both pastors

so he grew up in a household steeped in gospel music and first began singing in church.

P.J's mom introduced him to Beatles records when he was around six or seven and he later discovered the legs of Michael Jackson. Drum self piano when he was 8, initially playing along with the radio and TV show themes.

He later learned to play other instruments including drums and bass and started writing songs around the age of 13.

He went on to study not music but marketing at Morehouse College in Atlanta

but managed to juggle both playing in his own band Freestyle Nation as well as winning a Grammy

for his production work on India RE's 2002 Voyage to India, who says men can't multitask.

Following his graduation in 2003, PJ toured with Erica Badu,

following which he began writing his first solo album, 2005's Emotions.

Our guest's first few albums, which also include 2007's Perfect Song and 2010's Walk

Alone, were released independently before he was discovered and signed by former high school

pal Mac Main to Young Money Records in 2011.

Following the 2013 release of his major label debut, New Orleans, PJ grew disenchanted with Los Angeles,

left Young Money and moved back home where he founded Morton Records.

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