Syleena Johnson delivering powerful message to women everywhere on latest album

Syleena Johnson is ready to have people hear her roar on her new album, “Woman,” out Jan. 31 through Entertainment One.

“We are in the year of the woman, and to be honest, we should have been in the years of the woman for far longer. When you have been disregarded, disrespected, looked over and so much more, I just felt like it was time, and I wanted to dedicate this album to us,” says the noted R&B/neo-soul singer who was reared in suburban Chicago, the daughter of Hi Records legendary R&B artist Syl Johnson. She found her musical footing through the gospel choir at Thornridge High School in Dolton.

Johnson returns home to debut the new material at City Winery on Jan. 10, including the “very blunt” title track with its empowering lyrics.

“You gotta think like a woman but act harder than a man/Show love like a woman but take advantage like a man/Sacrifice like a woman but tell lies like a man, if you want to make America great again,” Johnson sings on the provocative track.

There are also songs like “I Deserve,” about a woman stating what she needs in a relationship, and “Freelance Lover” playfully mocking players. But there are also songs like “Home,” a duet with Q Parker from the group 112, about being blissful in coupledom, and “Frontlines,” about fighting for a partner.

“The album is a celebration of women and our thought process,” Johnson says. “I didn’t want to be too strict. I also wanted to be soft and sexual, peaceful, hopeful and loving — all the things women are.”

Though Johnson’s previous records have grown overtly feminist in their themes over the years — peaking in the latter part of her six-chapter album series from 2001 to 2014 — she credits her current wokeness to being a talk show host for the TV One daily series “Sister Circle,” featuring a roundtable that also includes reality TV star Quad Webb-Lunceford, TV and radio host Rashan Ali and singer Trina Braxton. The show airs at 11 a.m. on most local cable providers.

“Being a talk show host has brought that energy out of me. I’m on there daily with three other African American women, and most of our viewers are women, and we talk about real issues that affect our community,” saysJohnson, who has also appeared on reality shows “R&B Divas Atlanta” and “Marriage Bootcamp.” “We talked about abortion when abortion law was being attacked; we talk about fibroids and diabetes that are plaguing African American women. We talk about spirituality and relationships with our spouses and children. We talk about Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein and sexual harassment that is so rampant in our industry and how ridiculous and frequent and familiar it has become that some women don’t even know they are being abused.”

Entertainment One

In the past year, Johnson also opened up about former collaborator R. Kelly. The two were signed to the Jive Records label in the early 2000s and as such Kelly helped Johnson pen and produce a few songs, including her 2001 marquee hit “I Am Your Woman.” Johnson told The Associated Press last year she will never sing the track live again, saying the song — about a relationship between an older man and younger woman — brings her to tears.

In turn, 2020’s “Woman” has become her opportunity to take the reigns back and demand change. “As a talk show host, I have to know the ins and outs from a journalistic point of view of what’s going on behind the scenes. And I’m telling you, I’m not happy,” she admits. “As an artist I thought, what can I do to blow the whistle and help empower and educate and inspire other women? It’s always through music.”

Johnson’s spotlight doesn’t stop there. Her wellness company, SheLean, helps women focus on self-care, health and fitness. Johnson has also started taking up bodybuilding and competing in fitness contests, a continuation of her 2018 book, “The Weight Is Over,” about her journey to self-love. Soon she will release a documentary called “From One Stage To The Next,” chronicling her transformation from the concert stage to the fitness competition stage to the talk show host stage.

“I want to show women you can wear many hats and do anything you want at any age in this lifetime,” says the 43-year-old who also finished her college degree in nutrition science in 2015, two decades after she had first enrolled in her studies.

While “Woman” is dedicated to all females, Johnson does give pause to the example set by her mother, Brenda Thompson, who was the first black female police commissioner of Harvey, Illinois. Today, Thompson is retired and lives with Johnson in Atlanta. “And she still watches MSNBC and C-SPAN all day long and basically stalks politics,” says Johnson, remembering growing up in campaign offices as a child.

Johnson’s father, who will be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis this year, is her other guiding light. The two have collaborated over the years but none more so than on 2017’s “Rebirth of Soul,” which brought them back together in the studio for the first time in two decades. The album, full of covers of R&B and soul staples like “Lonely Teardrops” and “I’d Rather Go Blind” was produced by Syl, who chose the songs and the group of session players for the recording, all pulled from his own formative years in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“You know I’m easy, my dad is not,” she chides. “And it should be that way. He’s from a different era — an era that was hard — and he has had different visions about music. The takes on that album were numerous [because] back in those days, they brought in the entire band and you all recorded at the same time. If one person messed up they had to do it again. So going through that experience and with musicians from that time period was priceless. I will forever be grateful for my father for putting me in predicaments like that. Because not all fathers who have daughters in the industry do that, but he did.”

Selena Fragassi is a local freelance writer.