BMWK: Exactly! Being that we’re in the holiday season, does your family have any special holiday traditions?

Ann: Well, we definitely still celebrate a traditional holiday with food and family and of course good music and prayer. Our children are all across the country. But we have all been together with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

BMWK: Wait, you have great-grandchildren?!

Ann: We absolutely do. We have a great-granddaughter. We’ve had maybe as many as forty-four family members in the house for the holiday, and twenty-two sleeping over. It was just a ball of fun. Everybody coming in and sleeping anywhere they can find a nook or cranny.

BMWK: That’s awesome. Okay, so of course, we have to talk about the music. Tell us about your new album. What can people expect from it?

Ann: The project is entitled Living My Life. We are really excited to do this project because it is Arrow Soul Records. This particular project is an R&B project. We labeled it Life Music because it deals with the whole person, our relationships outside the four walls of the church, and it deals with our love relationships, on-the-job relationships, and friendships.

We had a really great group working on the project, young producers who have worked with the likes of Beyonce Knowles, Mary J Blige, just to name two of the greats that they have worked with. I had an opportunity to work with these young people who had heard about Ann Nesby from Sounds of Blackness. They knew my style of music and they knew the message that I always tried to stick with: bringing life music and feel good music. And I think it came across with that first title track Living My Life. The song talks about how we must accept the things we can’t change and be strong enough to know that if we trust God to take over things in our life, that you can live your life as though you know that God is in control.

BMWK: That’s powerful. I knew this was going to be good but I didn’t know we were going to church. [Laughs]

Ann: It’s definitely message music, feel good music; music to inspire and encourage, and to uplift. That’s what my message has been along my course for twenty-five years coming from a group like Sounds of Blackness. You know I try to stay the course and sing good music that represents our cultural unapologetically.

I had an opportunity to talk to Lou Rawls who is one of our great, great legends. And I asked him one question: “What was the thing that caused the longevity in your career?” And he gave me a simple answer: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Stay true to your fan base, keep reinventing yourself, but make it fresh and keep it true.”

BMWK: I love it, such great advice. If either of you could pick one song off the album that is your favorite song which one would it be?

Tim: It’s a tough question because all of the songs are like your kids. You have different relationships with each one of them, but you love all of them the same. So if I had to choose a song that would be my favorite I think it would probably be “Remember.” It would be Remember because I love the groove of that song and I just love the way Ann delivered the record. I love that record.

Ann: Well thank you honey.

Tim: But that’s very hard because I got other songs in my mind that I like but I love that one.

Ann: I think my favorite would definitely have to be the title track “Living my lIfe.” Because it took five years to come back and do a project people kept asking, “What have you been doing and what took so long to do a project?” But we literally named this project Living My Life because that’s what we’ve been doing. My daughter is in the industry. She is now in Sounds of Blackness as the lead singer. Then my grand-daughter started her own career. So I’ve been working with them and helping them get established in the industry. I wasn’t out, I was just living my life.