Singer, bandleader, activist, and educator Michael Mwenso was born in Sierra Leone, and cut his teeth on the London jazz scene as a teenager. At the urging of Wynton Marsalis, he came to New York City, where he worked with Jazz at Lincoln Center and founded the band, Mwenso and the Shakes.

In a three-day residency called "Michael Mwenso Loves You" happening Nov. 14-16 at The Greene Space, the arts and culture venue operated by New York Public Radio, Mwenso will share songs and stories, talk with musical luminaries, and explore his view of Black music as a source of spiritual nourishment and healing.

Speaking with Weekend Edition host David Furst, Mwenso talked about the shows and his artistic journey.

[The following transcript has been edited for clarity and concision.]

David Furst: This series is rooted in your vision of Black music as healing and nourishing. Tell us what you mean by that?

Michael Mwenso: You know, we think about music as an extra activity. But what if we thought about it like you need it just like water, that you need it just like to eat? So it's actually trying to change the way people think about music, and thinking of it more as a thing that you need daily, something that can help your intellectual and spiritual development, the way that we grow as human beings.

DF: You grew up in Sierra Leone. Was music a big part of your household, growing up?

MM: In Africa, and in other cultures and traditions, it was based on how we honor the gods, how we deal with ceremonial traditions, how we deal with actually bringing people together. It has nothing to do with hustling and being out here, using it in a way as money and stuff. In Africa, it's just around you in a certain way.

DF: You came to New York City after connecting with Wynton Marsalis, and you started working for Jazz at Lincoln Center. What kind of things were you doing there?

MM: I was very fortunate. If you were Black... and I don't even think just if you were Black, but I was Black and I was young in London, England, I was 14, 15 years old. And if you wanted to be about jazz music and be serious, you find him. And I think that's still very much how it is for today.

So I stalked him, in a certain way, and he basically empowered my life, and so many others out here. He allowed me and believed in me in a certain way to bring me from Ronnie Scott's, which is where I was already building a community.

Wynton came to play there, and brought a lot of support to the community I was building there, and then asked me to come to Jazz at Lincoln Center to try to do something similar in creating a kind of vibration, and a movement of sorts, within Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

Michael Mwenso's band, Mwenso and the Shakes, fuses elements from disparate Black musical styles into a singular sound.

courtesy Electric Root

DF: And then you formed your band, Mwenso and the Shakes, who'll be performing on Wednesday at The Greene Space. Your band mixes elements of jazz, funk, African music, and more ⁠— there's even a tap dancer in the lineup. What were you looking for when you built the Shakes?

MM: Well, it all goes back to a great man, a white man called Thomas Blowfield, who was basically a father figure. My mother, when we moved to London, got married to a beautiful English man called Roger Harrington. Sadly, he died in a car crash. And a year and a bit after that, my mother was deported back to Nigeria.

So this incredible man called Thomas Blowfield took me in, adopted me. And he was a freak of nature: he loved Black music, and he allowed our relationship to form under the fusion of Black musics. So from 11, 12, 13, I was seeing Ray Charles, I was seeing B.B. King, I was seeing Betty Carter. And that's really how the music took hold of me, and what I am today.

DF: As a teenager hanging out at the legendary jazz club Ronnie Scott's, you were meeting American icons like Benny Carter and Ray Brown. But you did not pursue the path of a jazz performer. Why not?

MM: There was a period of, like, I just wanna sing jazz, I just wanna sing bebop. Then there were periods of, I just wanna be a trombone player. And then, you know, there's what there is now. And jazz, for me, is one of the great, deep spiritual vibrations of Black people.

So you're always trying to get close to it. And I'm always still trying to reflect it in my music, because it's one of the most important creations of African diasporic people.

Michael Mwenso is in residence at The Greene Space Nov. 14–16; thegreenespace.org