Gospel duo and reality star sisters Erica and Tina Campbell have taken a break from recording together.
Tina obviously has some personal issues to deal with as revelations of her husband’s multiple affairs played out on their self-titled WEtv reality show this season. Erica took the group break and decided to do her own solo project Help which is out now. What made her decide to do her first solo project?
It was just time to do something different,” Erica told The Tom Joyner Morning Show. “Tina wanted some time to chill and relax and there was still more in me. More I wanted to do, more I wanted to say. She kept saying “Go ahead, do your thing.” “A Little More Jesus” came and did phenomenally in a short period of time. I recorded it at the top of last year and we went to New York’s Village Underground dn performed it and by the next week it was on radio. It moved really fast so I was like OK, a whole album.”
Erica says that the fact that her first solo release was accepted so quickly factored into her decision to move forward. She was testing the waters at first and when she got such positive feedback it encouraged her to keep going.
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“If it had happened [in the normal time span] I might have only done that one song. Sometimes God pushes you forward even when you’re hesitant and you’re not sure and He opened the door so wide. I knew me and my sister was going to be a group. But before that I sang by myself. Doing this now reminds me of my original dream, when I was like, 5 standing by myself in the bathroom with the hairbrush.”
There’s little downside to being on her own, Erica feels. Although she’s been recording with her sister since they were kids, it’s been good for her personally to experience dong music on her own. Encouraged by her husband and sister, it turned out to have a positive impact on Erica far beyond what she’d originally thought.
“The best is finding out what I want. Being able to stand on my own two feet, look in the mirror and go ‘this is what I like, this is what I don’t like. This is what I want to say. I don’t have to stop and pause for anything. It’s just me. I do miss Tina. I’m used to someone being next to me but now I’m a little freer. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s a different liberty and I’m really enjoying it. It makes you more responsible for yourself, what you sing, what you say. I think it’s necessary for everybody. “
And fortunately for the future prospects of Mary Mary, Tina has proven to be a major supporter, instead of being in any way threatened by her sister’s newfound solo career.
“Tina’s my biggest cheerleader. When we are doing interviews together, I can’t hardly talk because she’s so busy telling everyone how great the record is. She wrote “A Little More Jesus” but she wasn’t in the studio very much. But every time I would send her a song, she would say ‘These songs are helping me through my life.’ I felt honored that something that I did could really help my sister in some of the worst times in her life.”
Help tracklisting:
- The Question
- You Are
- A Little More Jesus
- Help (feat LeCrae)
- I’m a Fan
- The Atkins House
- Eddie
- Looking Like
- P.O.G.
- More Than a Lover
- Nobody Else
- All I Need Is You
- Changes
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