Story by Lauren Finney Harden
On his 40th birthday, Okorie “OK Cello” Johnson began “frolicking” on his cello, an improvised musical sound that changed his life. “It radically reorganized all the things in my life, creatively, personally, otherwise,” he says.
Frolicking was more akin to jazz than the structural classical music Johnson grew up playing on his instrument. Seeing the cello in a new light — one created by him — changed the then-English teacher’s perspective.
“I vowed at 40, not only never to put the cello down again, but that even if I did other things, the cello would still be the center of my life,” Johnson explains.
After finding his groove in 2015, he performed one solo show every month, 12 concerts across Atlanta, D.C., and London. By December, the Atlanta-based artist’s life had undergone a transformation. He now performs under the name OK Cello, and bills himself as an “improvising, composing, and looping cellist whose work is largely informed by the African diaspora.”
The journey to that pivotal birthday was not a linear one. Johnson began playing the cello at the age of 6 in Washington, D.C., showing enough promise that his mother invested $700 (in 1982 dollars) in a cello. He promised that he’d play it through high school. By junior year, he’d stopped private lessons entirely.
But the instrument kept pulling him back. At the request of his high school orchestra conductor, he performed a final movement of a Haydn concerto in high school, and then put the cello down again. He picked it up again while at Morehouse College, where he studied English. During his sophomore year, he heard someone in his dorm playing Stone Temple Pilots. Johnson decided to investigate and brought his cello along.
“The guy said, ‘It’s okay if you sit outside my dorm room and listen to me play, however, I do see that you have a cello there instead of sitting out here. Why don’t you come on inside and play with me?’” Johnson recalls. “And I said, ‘I’m a cellist. I play classical music. I don’t really know that I would be able to put that together.’”
The student told him he’d figure it out. Johnson credits this moment with (now rock musician) Julian Tillery, a pivotal moment that propelled his career forward.
The two formed a trio while still in school, adding John Reed on drums. Called Us!, it was an eclectic rock band that saw them playing sessions with artists like India.Arie and touring with singer-songwriters like Doria Roberts.
Those singer-songwriters became Johnson’s teachers in ways conservatories never could. “They were brilliant at three things: One, finding a story to convey in music so that it holds your attention; two, creating a kind of delivery of that music that also holds an audience’s attention; and three, most important, is that the songs have to be digestible,” he says.
These principles inform everything Johnson does as a solo artist. His songs flow from improvisation and letting melodies emerge, rather than forcing them.
“My songs are ready for sharing with the world, typically, when they move me to tears,” he explains. “And they don’t move me to tears necessarily because they’re sad, but they move me to tears, because I feel like somehow, they are really eloquent and they’re saying something emotional. I would probably struggle to say it with words.”
The cello’s range — that masculine low resonance and feminine higher register, as he explains it — holds humanity. Johnson has written songs about tragedies like the Mother Emanuel church massacre in Charleston. Yet listeners often find these pieces soothing without knowing their context.
“That’s both a conundrum and an accidental superpower of the music,” he says. “I think it can articulate complicated things and ideas, and still be pleasing to people’s nervous systems.”
His influences range from Prince to Bobby McFerrin, Bill Withers to Miles Davis, Ed Sheeran to Van Hunt.
Johnson considers himself a genre-hopper, creating what he calls simply “American music.” Prince is a heavy influence, as Johnson is inspired by the artist’s ability to live outside of convention and reinvent himself over and over. On stage, he prioritizes building communal experiences in his performances. Johnson is now 50, and he has four albums behind him, including one that dropped on October 31, 2025, called “Funny How Things Work Out.” He is primed for his “Purple xRain moment.” This new album marks a turning point: a more mature approach and sound, a new marriage, and ambitious musical territory.
Johnson collaborates extensively on this album for the first time in his solo career. Drummer and producer Luke Alexander Robinson helmed production and plays on tracks. Jazz pianist and theologian Julian Davis Reed contributed, as did Walt Casting, a guitarist from Atlanta rock band The 54, who contributed to Johnson’s first rock song. Singer Satara, who grew up playing bass with someone in Johnson’s circle, lent her voice. There is a spoken word collective called Bouquet, which features DJ Salah Anand Say, opera singer Molly Irene, and visual artist Charlie Palmer. They provide the foundation for “Gonna Be Okay,” which features poet Theresa the Songbird. The house track is layered with stringers and electronic departure, a far cry from the sheet music he grew up playing.
