| H-Town parted ways with Luke's label and went on to form their own label, H-TOWN MUSIC. Their parent company was Relativity Records.
After forming their own production company and parting ways with Lukes label, the trio released their third album in 1997 which was entitled Ladies Edition.
"It would be nice to sell millions of albums, no question." states GI, "But this one is more about taking it to the next level with the message and the music."
Shazam concured, "We just wanted to say some things that haven't really been said by many artists from our generation. A lot of artists say things like, "this one is for the ladies," well when H-Town says it, we really mean it."
"With this album, we wanted to show people another side." said GI he continues, "We've done the other stuff. We're not knocking other groups who still make songs that are insulting to some people, but our goal was to express ourselves on the other side of the fence.
Shazam agrees, "Ladies Edition is H-Town writing songs about subjects that we felt needed to be spoken on. We wanted to tell the truth. We don't pretend to be saints, but we felt that somebody needed to speak on respecting women's issues."
Dino adds, "We're focusing on the beauty of a woman inside and out. Woman is mother earth,the foundation and the back bone. The album is about respecting the women."
Even as an independent organization, the group manages itself and takes a hands-on approach in their overall career. The tracks that became Ladies Edition were recorded in H-Town's private studio. According to Dino, "Once in the studio,our mandate was clear. We want everybody to know that besides being able to write our own lyrics, we can produce our music and show off our talents to our fans and critics. We're letting the audience hear the true H-Town sound which wasn't fully expressed on our previous records. We feel this album is the most complete because we did it ourselves. We reached and covered all bases and dealt with the important issues, without forgetting our roots. This is a throwback to when the old R&B albums came out with something for everybody."
Women of the World
10/15/97
October 15- Houston based R&B outfit H-Town are set to release their first album in five years at the end of this month, a time that also ushers in a very different frame of mind for the group.
H-Town parted ways with Luke, found God, and dedicated its new album, Ladies Edition to women of the world. The album cover on the back has a list of organizations for battered women and AIDS orginazations as well as an apology in its liner notes to women everywhere for what H-Town calls its "past disrespectful ways."
"We're willing to take a stand as a group to show the ladies out there that there are some guys that respect women and want to take a stand and be on their side, "H-Town's Shazam told MTV News. "That's basically how we came up with the name 'Ladies Edition', cause we wanted to dedicate this album to the ladies. We feel that we made some mistakes in the past, with women, so we want to show the women that we got it right. Not only us...we are representing for a lot of males. There's a lot of other males, there's a lot of men out there that are doing the right thing, so we wanted to let the world know that H-Town, you know, we made mistakes in the past, and we just wanted to let the world know that we're sorry. We got it right, right now. Not only that, but we got it right with god too, mentally and spiritually with god. We are just trying to be some better men this year.". |
