I caught up with Marques at the offices of Elektra records in
NYC just before his promo tour began to promote his upcoming album.
It was 9:00 A.M. He just had a club night, tired. But the marketing
idea was enough to make the push on. This is his time of separation.
At least temporarily. IMX is on hold. Each choosing to do his
own thing. Starting with the lead single 'That Girl', Marques
has followed with a bonafied club banger. It's time for the group
lead to do just that…
OT: Tell me about the album….
MH: The name of the album is MH, it’s a good combination
of 17 songs…It’s nice, something different than what
people expect, and what people are used to from me with the group
and everything like that. It’s a lot more mature, I’m
letting everyone know that I’m a man now and growing up and
everything. (It’s) stuff that I’ve beenthrough in the
past, you know what I’m saying. Relationships and all that,
all that good stuff in there.
OT: Okay, how much writing did you do on it?
MH: I wrote about 5 of the songs on the album.
OT: Who made the R. Kelly collabo for 'Up In The Club' happen?
MH: Actually, R. Kelly had worked with my boys, B2K. My manager
Chris Stokes actually hooked it up, he called Rob, and was like
“I want you to do something for Marques,” and he was
down wit it so he hooked it up.
OT: What about the Joe Budden collaboration?
MH: I picked Joe Budden, cause we was tryin to pick a rapper for
the song, and they was talking about all these names like Jay-Z,
and Snoop, and everything like that, but I wanted somebody new,
fresh, and up and coming. I felt like since I’m a new artist
I wanted it to be a fresh combination. So we talked to Joey and
he was wit it to, he came to the studio and put it down. So it
was like WOW!
OT:
Honestly in my opinion that was like the hottest club record you
put out! What other producers did you work with?
MH: I worked with Troy Taylor, Kwan Paul, Kenny Whitehead, Tricky
Stewart, and uh Rufus Blaq.
OT: Were most of them seasoned? Or some of them new?
MH: Tricky Stewart is fairly seasoned, most of them were seasoned,
they’ve had hits, but most of them didn’t have big names
like out there. I just wanted my own unique style and brand of
music so, I went out and found producers that weren’t all
over everybody at the time ya’know.
OT: What other collabo’s are on the album?
MH: Yeah, I’ve got Lil Fiz from B2K, and I’ve got Jermaine
Dupri on the next single, It’s called ‘Pop That Booty’.
Of course Joe Budden, Pied Piper…
OT: What are LDB and Romeo up to?
MH: Rome is in the studio now currently recording an album, it’s
bout to come out in the beginning of the year. LDB is in the studio
producing.
OT: Are you still embracing the batman title? Or are you trying
to move away from it?
MH: I’m trying to move away from it. Batman is with the group,
ya’know what I’m sayin, MH, Marques Houston, is who
I am, the artist.
MH::Marques
Houston...No
More Batman.
