Vocation out today!

My first full-length release for these days of peril and promise

Oct 03, 2025

What’s good everyone,

Ahha!!! The day is here. Vocation is now live on all streaming platforms. You can order CD’s here and I’ll get them to you in the next couple of weeks. (I’m a little backed up, so expect them by beginning of November.)

Man, thanks be to God. This is my biggest release of anything I’ve ever released in my life, and I couldn’t be more thankful it’s coming out at such a time as this. The record is all about the vocations I have lived in my life, which I pieced together with the intention of helping you discern the vocations that you are called to live in yours.

We live in a world of constant noise which can make it hard to hear what is ours to do. I pray that the music of this record helps create space for you to hear God’s calls on your life. Glory be to the One who speaks.

Every song from this project comes from concrete relationships in my life. I’ve written about the single from the record, Moan, here and here, and there’s a music video coming for that soon and very soon that I’m excited to dig into with you. But today, I wanted to meditate on a few other songs, the bookends of the project.

“Hush, Somebody’s Callin’ My Name” is the album’s opener. This is a Negro Spiritual that I’ve sung in Black churches my whole life (primarily St. Mark UMC in Chicago). Black folk have sung this song for centuries to discern God’s presence in their lives as we navigate around the toils and snares that readily threaten to ensnare us in this day and age. As the mystics Howard Thurman and Barbara Holmes have taught me, the spirituals are a treasure trove of Black contemplative wisdom. In that spirit, as the first track on the album, Hush theologically frames everything else.

Hush invites us to think about how God is calling us to live out our vocations. We have our names called as spouses (Textures) and parents (Share A Smile) and members of our race (Moan) and concerned citizens against genocide (Dressing the Wound) and as siblings (My Parents’ Greatest Gift to Me) and as friends (Nerve to be Super) and as children (Nevertheless Hope). This song is a reminder that we have to listen to carefully to God, to our community, and to ourselves to hear these callings (What a Wonderful World, Cockroach, Pheasant, Butterfly/Precious Still).

The world has so much noise that seeks to distort that calling, hence “hush.” The deluge from Washington, the backbreaking speed of our economy, the addictiveness of our tech, the volatility of our weather, the busyness of our friends, the idolatry of our religions, the questioning of ourselves - so much can keep us from hearing the true callings on our lives. But I pray that this record helps us listen with the wisdom of my enslaved ancestors who had the spiritual wherewithal to bequeath “hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ my name” to the world who needs to hear from God.

The song ends with my mother saying, “oh it’s so good to hear your voice.” I had her say that with the gusto of her mother, my Grandmommy, Mrs. Gwendolyn Newberry Davis. Grandmommy has passed on, but whenever I called her growing up, she’d often respond by saying, “Oh it’s so good to hear your voice.” Putting my Ma’s voice in the track ties me to the God of my Grandmommy who beckons me, who beckons us all, to share our authentic voices. Grandmommy, you have passed on, but you are still here. Aşé and amen.

The last song of the record is called Nevertheless Hope, written for my parents, Neville and Adonna Reid, who are eternally hopeful people because of their love of Jesus and their awareness of God’s love for them and the world. It has been an honor of a lifetime to be their eldest son.

I conclude with Nevertheless Hope because we need a grounded hope in these days of peril and promise. We neither listen for God’s voice nor share our voice with others if we are bereft of hope. When hope is scarce, we shrink and repress.

What worlds are you hoping to create with God and with others in these days? What justice do you want to see? What new beginnings do you want to witness? I do not ask these questions with a toxic positivity that bypasses the pains of our world and seeks escape. (Certainly religion is guilty of that in droves.) Rather, I am interested in seeing how we can live with eternal hope in our present. That is the good news of Jesus that animates me and that I want to see animate more of the church and the greater world. I hope this track resonates with your soul in this kind of way. Thank you for tending to your callings.

The Best Ways to Support

I appreciate your listening anywhere in any way, but the best way to support the music is to buy the music directly, either through cd’s or through Bandcamp given Bandcamp pays far more money directly to the artists than streaming services do. (It just so happens that today is Bandcamp Friday, meaning that the artists you buy from get even more of the money from the record sent directly to us.) BEHOLD, The JuJu Exchange record that I co-released last week, is also up on Bandcamp. Thank you for your ear.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Oct 3 Vocation from Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust releases

Oct 4 Vocation Listening Party (Muse Coffee Studio, 11a-1p)

Oct 9 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - West Englewood Branch (Chicago)

Oct 17 Julian Davis Reid at McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago)

Oct 18 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Oct 22 Chicago Public Piano Tribute to Black Classical Music - North Austin Public Library (Chicago)

Oct 23 Grace Notes: A Public Conversation about Spirituality and Music (Virtual)

Oct 23 Julian Davis Reid in Concert at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena, CA)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid at Calvary Baptist (Haverhill, MA)