Mary Mary

biography

Since the 1990s contemporary Gospel has been one of the fastest growing segments of popular music, and other than Kirk Franklin no act is more responsible for popular acceptance of the genre than Mary Mary. Consisting of sisters Erica Atkins-Campbell and Tina Atkins-Campbell, Mary Mary has brought a fusion of gospel themes with soul and hip-hop sounds that has resulted in exceptional music that has crossed not only the Gospel/Soul boundary, but has even brought a level of pop radio acceptance to God-based music.

The Atkins sisters were raised in Inglewood, California, the middle daughters of an Evangelical minister and part of a well-known singing clan locally. They began to separately land gigs as backing vocalists for various Soul and Gospel performers, including Brian McKnight and Kenny Lattimore. While they were known mostly as singers, the two were also developing their songwriting skills, and a chance meeting with hot young producer Warryn Campbell helped them to land a publishing contract.
Their first album, ‘Thankful’, earned Mary Mary a slew of accolades; just as exciting was the reaction outside the US: the single ‘Shackles’ was a Top 10 Pop hit in the UK, France, the Netherlands and Australia. "I remember the first time we went overseas," recalls Tina of a huge stadium show in Holland. "Seeing 60,000 people singing Shackles' along with us was absolutely amazing!"

When asked of their recent success the girls responded, “I hope that our music changes lives more than anything else," says Erica. "I want people to hear it and be encouraged to keep going. We want people to hear the record and respond. We're going to continue to do what we do and do it Mary Mary style. We're going to go out and be funky and fun - we can't help being those kind of people. Ultimately, we're just two girls from California who love God and are glad about the talent God's given us."
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