Sunday with Gregory Porter: ‘I compete with my wife over barbecued pork ribs’

Sunday mornings? Our three-month-old boy is up at 6.30am and our eight-year-old son loves to jump in our bed. I’m a lounger, but I’m very conscious that Sunday is a day to spend with family.

Sundays growing up? My mother was a minister, so Sunday mornings were quite an event, getting eight kids ready to go to church. There is a particular smell of black hair being straightened with a hot comb heated on the fire in the kitchen that reminds me of all my sisters getting ready for Sunday school.

Sunday lunch? We’re savage carnivores, so my family loves my herb-crust roast beef and curried salmon. I compete with my wife over barbecued pork ribs. She’s from Taganrog in Russia and her mother sent her some interesting spice, but she won’t tell me what it is.

Sunday music? We do a lot of Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, John Coltrane. I’ve been listening to a lot of piano players – Gerald Clayton, Kenny Barron. I’m a fan of the very soulful classical artists.

Sunday exercise? We don’t like structure, so we may play a game of smacking the tennis ball over the tree, or swinging a golf club or cricket bat. I haven’t busted any windows yet. We like to play checkers and chess and cheat. It’s a family thing, to take something and deconstruct it.

Sunday chores? Especially during Covid, we didn’t have anybody coming to clean. So I do the mopping and vacuuming. Then there’s the things you forget about: how do you get the dust off of the top of the curtains? Somebody has to do it.

Last thing Sunday night? I prefer to fall asleep accidentally. I’ll often be watching the BBC in a hotel room and will get a bang on the wall at 3am: ‘Turn the damn TV off.’ When I’m home, there’s a lot of me falling asleep in front of the TV, or on my office floor listening to records. I get in trouble with my wife. She says: ‘Why do you sleep like a bumpsh’ – which means a homeless person in Russian – ‘in your own house?’

Gregory Porter’s latest album, Still Rising, is out now