It’s a Tuesday afternoon and sisters Erica and Tina Campbell, better known as Mary Mary, are balancing a hectic schedule of rehearsals for their tour with Bebe and Cece Winans next month, while getting the word out about their upcoming album, ‘Something Big,’ which just dropped this week.
In the midst of all of that came the news that Chris Brown had a bit of an outburst following an interview and performance on ‘Good Morning America.’ Brown has since appeared on the BET show ‘106 and Park,’ where he apologized “to anybody who was startled in the office, anybody who was offended or really disappointed in my actions, because I was disappointed in the way I acted.”
The Grammy Award-winning duo had recently reached out to the ‘Deuces’ singer for a possible collaboration, but things didn’t pan out.
“We actually didn’t [get in the studio with him]. We did connect. We were considering having him do a remix to ‘Walking,’ and we since have decided to go in a different direction,” says Erica.
“Of course, we heard about all of the things that have been happening,” she continued. “Our thought process for Chris Brown is pray for him. Everybody makes decisions that are not the best and that have backlash, but some of us make those decisions while everybody’s looking and it’s hard to live them down.”
She continues, “I don’t think some of the decisions that were made were the wisest, and I think they will definitely hurt him more than they help him. We’re praying for him.”
The Inglewood, Calif., natives, who also are judges on BET’s ‘Sunday Best,’ say they have a wide spectrum of secular artists they would love to collaborate with, from Aretha Franklin and Celine Dion to Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z.
“I don’t know how the traditional Mary Mary fan would feel, but it’s about their art. I’m not checking on them because of the god they believe in; I’m just looking at what they do, and they do it well,” Erica says.
“It’s always really cool to see a tweet from Missy [Elliott] or to see Sherri Shepherd say something about a Mary Mary song. It’s always really cool. As gospel artists, for us, we feel like our music is more than just Sunday morning, and it’s more than just the church and the gospel station. It is for the world. It’s every day, all day, everywhere [and] for everybody.”
For Tina, their new album, ‘Something Big,’ truly reflects the underlying message they want.
“When I start my day off with prayer, I’m able to get through the insanity. I’m at peace and I feel like I grow in wisdom and understanding,” she ays. “That’s major. I don’t care if you have all the money or no money. I don’t care if you’re happily married or have been divorced 40 times. Everything is better when God is a part of it. That’s what we want to tell everybody.”
The platinum-selling ladies had an R&B crossover 2009 hit with ‘God in Me,’ which they are “grateful for,” but for now, they are just making sure they touch people in their own way.
“We want to do everything bigger and better and broader, and change the way people look at God,” says Tina. “God has been misrepresented in a lot of capacities, and we are just trying to represent him in a more excellent way, so that people respect the god in us.”
