Arrested Development became the freshest artists on the music scene in 1992 with their album, "3 Years--5 months--and 2 Days in the Life of." It brought forth a new flavor of music and style to the music scene. The group was rewarded for their view on life; they won Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 1993 Grammy Awards for the song "Tennessee". MTV awards and critical acclaim were just part of the success the group garnered. But then, it seems we lost touch with the band that brought us "Mr. Wendal."
But they are back in the public eye, winning the first ever singing event on "Hit Me Baby 1 More Time", the hit NBC Reality TV show. This gave me the chance to have an interview with Speech, the lead and outspoken member of the group.
I wanted to know what came with critical acclaim, if there was animosity with other band members who went solo, and would they release their winning version of "Heaven" on a new cd.
Mandy - Congratulations on the other night. It was nice to see you guys on television together; I haven't seen you on TV in forever.
Speech - Thank you; thank you. It's true; it's good to see ourselves up there.
Mandy - And congratulations on your performance in general. Your performance was brought up by other artists competing, talking about how you took a different route with the second song instead of going with a karaoke version.
Speech - Right, right. We definitely choose the songs we are going to do and we still wanted to make the song our own. We had fun with it.
Mandy - So who are the members of the band now? Have new members joined or is it still primarily the same lineup?
Speech - Primarily the same line - up, however Arrested Development is like a jam band "sound system" so new members come constantly! The existing members from the first album are: Speech, Eshe, Rasa Don, Baba Oje'. The newer members are: Nicha, Za, One Love, Fareedah, JB, Melody, Jason, Omar and Kennedy!
Mandy - You won awards and critical praise for your first CD. What happened with the band after that?
Speech - We released a second album called Zingalamaduni
(Zing-ga-la-ma-duni) that got critical acclaim but didn't reach it's full potential. However, we toured the world off of that album and got great response from overseas!!
Mandy - Are you still in touch with members who went solo?
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