Kelly Price Breaks News to UrbanBridgez.com on ‘The Queen Project’
UrbanBridgez.com recently talked to Kelly Price for a two-part interview (Part II, later this month) & asked her the latest on The Queen Project, an album she worked on with Deborah Cox & Tamia with all the songs produced by super producer Shep Crawford. For the fans waiting on the project, the news isn’t good. Check out what Kelly had to say about the latest with the project…
The latest on that is it’s not happening! It was very disappointing for everybody involved, Shep Crawford had this vision after working many years with me, Deborah Cox & Tamia. We’ve actually all done concerts together, I guess one night he had this light bulb over his head when we were all in concert and he was playing for each of us as the band conductor. He made up in his mind that he wanted to do something that included the three of us. The first idea was for us to all participate on a song, then that grew into an entire project. Last year he came to each of us and asked if we would be interested in doing it. He had mentioned it to me like 5 years ago and the timing was just off because I was getting ready to tour for the gospel album. So when he came to me last year I was almost finished with the new project, but knowing that the other two ladies were willing to get on board and having some freedom, me along with my business partner. We decided to do it and to put my project on hold, which at that point it was about 85% done. So we went in and started recording for The Queen Project and we actually got all of the music done! Inside of like a two week visit, we got together in September & our schedules were so crazy it didn’t allow for us to all get back together until the top of this year. So we recorded the rest of the music and finished the album. if you break it down into days, maybe in like 9 days we completed an entire album. The music was so incredible and we were all so excited for people to hear what had came from those recording sessions.
People who love us individually wanted to hear it and you have people who believe when you take three very noted voices, not just voices but careers and put them together, that it would be a possibility that one voice would over power the others. That there wouldn’t be enough discipline to blend them together and to make it work. One of the other ladies actually brought up the song ‘True Colors’ by Cyndi Lauper & I came up with an arrangement for the song and produced it with Shep and it was incredible! The arrangement, the way we sang it, our voices together, just the way we did it, it sounds like you’re listening to a Wilson Phillips tune oppose to a track where Deborah Cox was singing with Tamia and Kelly Price. I’m hoping that one day that version of ‘True Colors’ has the opportunity to be released.
So the music was great but we lost time. Lots of that had to do with not being able to get our three business camps together. We were able to come together creatively, but looking back we jumped the gun. We got together, got with Shep, went in and recorded the music which that part was lovely. Where we kind of fell off is when it was time for camp 1, camp 2 and camp 3 to come together for a meeting of the minds. With the business folks, managers and things. So it went from a four person party to a party of maybe about 10. Because we all have a couple of people representing us individually. Unfortunately we were not able to get the project off the ground in the time we had. If we had time like that, it would of worked itself out. We would of been able to put out the record and I believe we would of broke records and swept every award category available to us. So we just didn’t have the time to get the business camps together in the time we had.
Deborah had a contract on Broadway right before we started on the project, so she knew she could devote her time to it until she had to pull back and go into rehearsals. With a signed contract, Broadway waits for no man. And with my business partner who was all down for me doing it, but when it started to take too long we had to make a hardcore decision with me being out of the market place for awhile. Even though I had a #1 gospel album on Billboard in 2006, but mainstream music doesn’t consider that as a mainstream release. They almost consider it like my Christmas album, like a novelty thing. So with that in mind, it’s been 7 years since I’ve had a release, so we had to do something. So we had to go and get my project done when we found out the Queen Project wasn’t gonna be released or delayed. So it was a hard decision when you think of all the time we all put into it, the emotions, songs that were written, the project was just incredible. Fortunately I have all of the music so if I ever just want to ride in my car and listen to some great music, that nobody else has I’m able to do that. Hopefully one day down the road, the music will see the light of day!
As far as talent goes that’s the one thing I did appreciate about being with the other women. And this is not about insulting anybody out there, I have an appreciation for everybody who is doing what they do. If it works for you, if it’s talent or a machine that you’ve convinced the rest of the world that what you do is something they can’t live without, who can hate on that! But to work with those ladies and to know they can stand flat footed, microphone or not, and open their mouth and make it silent in a room. Is incredible, I love that!
That really sucks. I wanted to hear it
This makes me sad, I so wanted to have this album :-(
Kelly Price Breaks News to UrbanBridgez.com on ‘The Queen Project’ http://urbanbridgez.com/ubgblog/2010/08/…
LOL @ Kelly
” If it works for you, if it’s talent or a machine that you’ve convinced the rest of the world that what you do is something they can’t live without, who can hate on that!”
The songs did sound nice on Youtube from what I heard on the form. But I knew this project wasn’t going to get off the ground! By the dates kept changing;I didn’t hear anything about the project: until now from this interview…..
It’s incredable that she and Deborah Tamia can get alone as adult women. nice to read she didn’t insult anyone, she respected their projects as well.
All of them came to a agreement that working on their solo projects would be for the best.
This is my first comment here! Really nice blog, thanks!
Thank You very much!