William James Stokes is the son of a church man, and on his first album he comes right out with it. The Preacher’s Kid is the singer and rapper’s debut as Sir the Baptist, a name he felt suited his origins in the Bronzeville district of South Side Chicago. “I grew up in a Chicago area where they called it ‘Chi-raq’ — and I felt like if I was gonna be the voice crying out in the wilderness, I would want to be John the Baptist,” he says.

Stokes spoke with NPR’s Scott Simon about playing Lollapalooza (where he began his performance by stepping out of a casket), writing about abuse in his extended family and pursuing a more progressive version of the religious education he was born into. Hear their conversation at the audio link.

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