 When asking Marlon Campbell about his nearly two decades longevity in the music industry, the
New Orleans native credits it to being “an honorable guy,” something that can be hard to find in the entertainment world. If you haven’t heard of
Campbell , you’re probably at least familiar with his work and his family. The former distributor and first cousin to popular playwright, Tyler Perry is currently working on two major projects: his first major motion picture, “Oblivious” and his reality show with R&B trio Blaque. In his interview with Entertainment Wire, he discusses his new movie, his family and his project, “Blaque In The House.”
Entertainment Wire: You originally started out in a band. What type of music did you make with your band?
Marlon Campbell: We set out to do Hip-Hop/R&B and ultimately ended up being a House/Techno band.
ETW: How long were you in the band?
MC: 3 years. From 1989-1992.
ETW: How did you and
Tyler end up working together to distribute his first movie?
MC: Well, I had been in this business for many years. We were talking about his transition into Madea’s Family Reunion. He gave me the opportunity-where he said, “If you would like, you could be my only other distributor, outside of myself.” I was like, “Well, absolutely.” So, we started to distribute his work.
ETW: How would you describe
Tyler as a business person?
MC: He’s a consummate professional. He’s very sure of everything he does and I think that’s the caliber of a lot of his success. He’s gotten to a point where he’s confident in everything that he does and that comes across in terms of numbers for people that come out to see the plays and movies.
ETW: I read that the character Madea was based on your mother. How and when did you find out?
MC: It wasn’t specifically based on my mom. In all of
Tyler ’s characters, he took a piece of all of his aunts, i.e. my mom, my other cousins’ moms and created all of the characters that are in his plays and movies. I was able to recognize this when my mom, myself and my wife at the time, went down to the Fox Theatre. Before he even acknowledged my mom, I knew just by watching. When you grow up together, you know how each other’s parent works. He acknowledged her [my mom] that night.
ETW: How long ago was that?
MC: My mom now takes care of his mom. She’s been doing that for about a year. So this was about 2002.
ETW: So, did the gun-toting thing come from your mother or was that another aunt?
MC: That comes from my great aunt. I never really knew her much but it was very simple; she was the sweetest woman in the world but she will pull a gun on you. (Laughter) And eventually she carried one with her. So, yeah, that’s her.
ETW: So, tell me about your movie “Oblivious.”
MC: “Oblivious” is a story about kids that were trouble makers. They turn their lives around and become college students. They find themselves meeting a media mogul and the guy makes them an offer that they can’t refuse. The kids take the bet and find themselves in the middle of being framed for an international incident, running for their life from hit men and the FBI. The soundtrack for this movie is going to be incredible. The release date is going to be late spring or summer 2009.
ETW: Now, Natina from the group Blaque, is she involved in the movie?
MC: She was going to play the sister of Spencer Collins in the film and we’re in talks with an actor for that who I can’t mention because we haven’t solidified him. But he’s a big actor and she’s going to play his sister.
ETW: Did you draw the storyline from any real-life experiences?
MC: This movie came to me when my cousin and I had talked about the media and its depiction of him being a “chitlin circuit” writer. We both took offense to that. I was in Europe with Whitney [
Houston ] and the concept came to me. I pulled out my laptop and started typing away.
ETW: I remember an incident last year of an artist signing a so-called record deal for someone who didn’t even have a record company. Is that really common in the recording industry and the entertainment industry as a whole? Because some people felt that this artist had been in the industry for a long time and that “they should know better” but is it really easy for something like that to happen?
MC: It’s pretty commonplace. The music business is full of wannabees. And that’s not a bad thing, if your desire to be in this business is legitimate but a lot of people get in this business with the misconception of having to manipulate their way to the top. That’s information coming from people that didn’t make it in this business. This is a relationship based business and it’s about quality work.
ETW: Tell me about “Blaque In The House.” It’s a reality show, right?
MC: Yeah, it’s kinda reintroducing Blaque to the marketplace. The interesting thing about them is that they are the first female trio to go triple platinum on their first album. Because they vanished from the scene due to a tragedy (Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez death), a lot of people don’t understand the correlation. Lisa was a valuable asset to them and she was the one who brought them into this business. So, the show is to tell their fan base what happened and why this group that was peaking just stopped, taking you from that to who they are now. It’s also testing the market for their new album. T-Boz is going to move into the place of “Left Eye” as their mentor.
ETW: Have you already started shooting it?
MC: Yes, we already have video on Youtube. You can search for the Blaque In The House trailer.
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