Sam Cooke’s legacy will not be exploited if his granddaughter has anything to do with it.
During a recent appearance on the “Syndicate X Library” podcast hosted by Chris Collins, Nicole Cooke-Johnson opened up about the weight and responsibility that comes with stewarding the estate of her legendary grandfather, the late King of Soul Sam Cooke.
“Running my grandfather’s estate can be difficult,” she admitted. “I tell people we say ‘yes’ very rarely because we’re tied to the spirit and the history of the legacy he left, and we don’t have any room for error.”
She continued, “A posthumous estate is something that you can’t make a lot of mistakes on. We’re held to a certain level of accountability. So I carry into that an ethos I’ve nurtured—that if something isn’t organic for us, if it doesn’t come through naturally and just make sense, then it might not be for us.”
Cooke-Johnson added that the guiding principle behind every decision is intention and respect.
“It’s rooted in the idea that we’re here to do things that feel good, that make people happy, that pay homage to this legacy,” she said. “Everything else may not be for us.”
Cooke-Johnson, who serves as CEO of Royalty Firm LLC, founded the company in 2008 to help her grandmother, Barbara Cooke, manage the late icon’s publishing rights and business interests. Barbara—who had a role in raising her—died in 2021.
Cooke famously died at just 33 years old after being fatally shot in a Los Angeles motel in 1964, at the height of his career. Though his time in the spotlight spanned less than a decade, his impact on music, American culture, and the Civil Rights Movement remains immeasurable.
During his lifetime, Cooke earned 34 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and became synonymous with classics like “You Send Me,” “Chain Gang,” and the enduring Civil Rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come”—which Cooke-Johnson has since adapted into a children’s book.
She also shared that her role behind the scenes felt almost preordained. While several of her siblings are “natural-born singers,” she said she showed early signs of being a manager rather than a performer.
“I tell people I have this Black swan sort of story,” she joked, prompting Collins to quip, “Well, you’re the manager.” Cooke-Johnson laughed and nodded in agreement.
