By Mia Watkins | For the Birmingham Times
A broken foot led to what would become the ultimate concert experience of Sherri Brown Live, happening May 24 at WORKPLAY.
“During that time, I had a lot of time to think about what was next,” Birmingham performer Sherri Brown said. “A lot of prayers were happening, and I was feeling a bit empty. I was just really feeling down about what happened, but, in that time, God placed things in my mind like, ‘OK, what are you going to do when you get out of this?’”
This led Brown to call on filmmaker and founder of Moon Men DJs, Kevin Key, for help putting together videos in which she could still perform.
“We talked for two and a half hours,” she said. “That was one of the most enlightening conversations. Kevin was like, ‘Is that all you’re going to do? Don’t you know God has put more into you than just sitting down and singing in front of a camera? Let’s think about this a bit more.
The result is a one-night-only cinematic concert experience designed to give Birmingham audiences a stadium-level show in a smaller venue. The show will blend the talent that Birmingham has to offer with the inspiration Key gathered from movie sets and stage shows of larger touring acts. There will be large LED walls and time codes that allow them to be synced with the music. There will be AI-powered cameras and a multi-cam experience to give the show a high-end feel.
“Sherri Brown Live is a culmination of a lot of experiences doing various projects at the highest level,” he said. “We were able to say, ‘OK, how can we package this?’ Because the people of Birmingham deserve more. We’ve just given people traditionally what we have. A lot of times, it’s not because we don’t want to give people more, it’s because we don’t have access to certain things.”
Key remembers being a kid at concerts, wondering how the shows were put together. Now, he hopes Sherri Brown Live will inspire the next generation of creatives.
“Being able to bring events of this caliber to Birmingham helps to bridge the gap of expectation of what’s possible,” he said. “Doing it in Birmingham says you don’t have to be in Atlanta, LA or New York. It just takes a willingness of people who have the resources to say that they’re going to invest.”
Brown said she’s been inspired by Birmingham artists such as Pastor Mike Jr. (PMJ) and Pynk Beard during the time it’s taken to put the show together. Several other local artists helped the duo craft the show. In fact, Brown’s entire band for Sherri Brown Live is made up of local artists. She hopes the show gives fellow local artists a glimpse at what’s possible.
“I’m super Birmingham,” she said. “It’s so much talent, so many gifts here. The city is booming. We’ve got movies, all kinds of things coming up here. I’m just excited to be in that place to inspire others and to be inspired by people who are working in those career paths.”
Brown said that audiences can expect some of the covers of artists such as Fantasia that she’s known for singing throughout the city, but she’s also excited to debut some new, original songs.
“I’m excited about my family and friends being there, and the city showing up as they always do,” she said.
The year-long process of putting together the show has been an exercise in faith, according to Brown. She said that headlining her own show was always a dream of hers, but she’d been told that she wasn’t headline material.
“You have to believe that you can,” she said. “We can be so fearful at times, thinking that we don’t have the access to do the thing that we aspire to do. If you stay at the level of not being able to do this, then things won’t get done. To step out on faith and see what God can do in your life has been absolutely amazing.”
She said she wants people to leave the show inspired.
“I want people to walk away like, ‘You know what? I can do that, too. I’m right here in Birmingham, and whatever I set out to do, I can do that,” she said. “We want them to know that whatever journey they are on, they walk by faith and patience. What you see at the end of that is something totally big that you know that only God has done.”
Sherri Brown Live is set for Sunday, May 24, at 7 p.m. at WORKPLAY, 500 23rd St S, Birmingham, AL 35233. Tickets are available at https://www.moonmendjs.com/event-details/sherri-brown-live.
