After experiencing a tidal wave of success in the early 1990’s which included two Grammy Awards and platinum record featuring the hit single “Tennessee”, Arrested Development is looking to make a return to the mainstream music scene with their new album entitled Strong.

Lead choreographer and dancer Montsho Eshe sat dawn with HipHopClub to discuss the group’s return, the current state of hip hop, the group’s success overseas and the future of Arrested Development.

 This is the first album from the group in nearly three years. What was the inspiration behind Strong?

We’re musicians at heart, so of course we’re always wanting to record and do more music all the time. We just wanted to get back in the studio and release some new, fresh stuff. Within three years, a lot can happen. We just wanted to get back in the studio and do some new stuff and let our fans know that we’re still here; still making music and we’re still relevant.

Did you hear that demand from the fans, that they wanted a new album?

People always tell us they just want to hear good music and the message. We always definitely want to bring a message with our music, so that’s a definite key element that we always have to bring to our albums and our music…They just want to hear good music and they want to just be supportive of whatever we create, which is a blessing.

In The World is Changing one verse of the lyrics goes:
Now everybody is a clown/Music is so watered down
So many things that are happening now/I’m just frustrated

 The lyrics obviously suggest that music today isn’t what it should be both in regards to both style and substance. How does Arrested Development hope to change the current music situation?

 As artists, we have to stay true to ourselves on a consistent basis, an everyday basis; we know that’s all that we can do. Hopefully because we’re being true to ourselves and putting music out that we feel is feeding people’s spirits in a positive way, it may want our peers or people listening to make a change and say you know what, let me be real about what I’m feeling and whatever the truth is for me, and put it in my music. I feel like we’re definitely going to change people throughout music in just being true to who we are, and putting out music that’s true to us. If we don’t believe it, nobody else will.

 The World is Changing has seen success in Japan, No. 9 on the Japan Pop Charts. Why do you think your band is so successful in Japan?

One thing about Japan, it’s a great place, an amazing culture. They’re really into hooks over there, so they like a lot of melodic things. I think the World is Changing is so melodic, and they’re into melodic music. It’s so funny, because I did a song over there with this Japanese artist and he was so soulful. He really doesn’t speak much English. They’re into a lot of very soulful stuff, and stuff that’s really thought provoking, even with the language barrier surprisingly. They’re into things that make you feel good, they’re a very happy culture to me…It was so amazing, we were in between Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys [on the pop charts], and that was pretty cool.

 The band blew up in 1992 with the album 3 years, 5 months and 2 days. How hard is it to keep it going and keep turning out the hits?

 The thing is, back then we were doing it for fun. We didn’t know that it was going to be as big as it was. We had no idea; we were just doing music and being ourselves. In the beginning, it was a slow process. It came out, it was slow then all of a sudden it just blew up overnight. You do feel that pressure, but I think we felt it more back in 1994 after the first record had been so successful, and then our second record Zingalamaduni went gold. Compared to the first one, of course people would consider that not as successful, but it was still successful because we went gold. We sold 500,000 copies; even today people still talk about that record and buy that record. Now, it’s just about putting out good music. We want to be respected by people like you and our peers, and just know that we’re putting out our records; whether it sells a million copies or two or three copies. We want it to sell of course, but we just want to put out good music really, truthfully…We just try to create good music, period.

When was the decision made to look for a new singer, and how did you find Tasha Larae?

 Speech and her met a church event. He saw her singing [backup] for someone, he liked her voice and her vibe. She auditioned for the group and she’s been with us for two years now.

What’s the future hold in store for Arrested Development? Do you see another album coming out soon or more tours?

We tour all the time. We’re actually doing a Canadian tour, a U.S. tour; also we’re going to Europe and Australia. We’re going to continue to tour and release good music as long as we can and also individually we all do different things. We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing, being creative people…Not just music. I do choreography; I want to write a book, I’m actually writing a book. Speech just wrote a book, acting. You’re going to see a lot of different things from Arrested Development, a lot of different aspects.

For more information on Arrested Development visit: http://www.arresteddevelopmentmusic.com

Find them on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ArrestedDevlpmt on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/arresteddevelopmentmusic And Face Book: Arrested Development Music

– Article by Max Sanders

Read original blog post