Minister Marion Hall’s upcoming album to target ‘broken people’
Published:Monday | December 20, 2021 | 12:07 AMSade Gardner/Staff Reporter
“Stop it baby girl, please,” a giggling Minister Marion Hall tells her granddaughter.
It’s Saturday afternoon and she’s just taken her for a stroll in Nashville, Tennessee.
“She’s always wiggling up … I was wondering what she’s doing and she said, ‘Grandma, I’m a worm’,” Hall dissolved into laughter before speaking about her upcoming album.
She calls the project one for “broken people”, a state she is familiar with all too well in her own testimony of being freed from the darkness that engulfed her when she was the most sought-after female dancehall act before baptising in 2015. The album also draws inspiration from recent experiences.
“This album is for people who think of committing suicide every day, people that have gone into depression,” Hall told The Gleaner. “I myself, some months ago, felt depressed, and I said this is not about God. I started praying myself out of what I was feeling, and look at me now. God is not a God of sickness; He heals sickness and I could never allow that to grab on to me. But there are times when people go into loneliness because of this pandemic, and people don’t get to go out much or do all kinds of activities, but I was just going through some things. Thanks be to God, I’m good.”
Her last album, His Grace, was released in 2018 following her debut gospel project, When God Speaks, in 2016. She’s still split on the name for her upcoming album (either Still Standing or Broken But Dead), but is “trusting God for an album that can’t be compared to anything I’ve ever done”.
The album opener is If I Was Famous, produced by her eponymous record label. The new single, boasting a dancehall framework and heavy bassline, compares her social life before and after getting saved, with an overarching message of her commitment to God, despite the revelation of fake friends who were just around for her fame and money. Hall said the single does not mirror the sound of the album, but has done the job of getting people’s attention for God, making it an ideal time to release the album.
“I plan to go into studio for January; the musicians who did this song are ready and it’s a live album,” she said. “I’ve also been talking to Gramps Morgan for a while, because some of my songs for the album have that Nashville sound. My daughter lives in Nashville, my niece lives in Nashville, and I grew up listening to country music … . There’s also this Alabama sound, because I’m a bluesy type of person. So I reached out to Gramps and we’re still talking, and he’s planning to connect me with some people, even some church people here in Nashville… .”
She also recently met with American television personality and publicist Kelly Cutrone, who connected her to other musicians whom she’ll be working with in New Orleans. Hall said she received criticism for associating with Cutrone, but said “church people are not the people God is sending me to”.
She said they are also working on another project, the details of which she is not ready to disclose.
“When I posted the picture with her, people started to dig her up. Yes, she’s from The Hills (reality show). Yes, she was also a judge on America’s Next Top Model. Yes, she’s into a whole lot of TV stuff. When people started judging, I had to ask them to do a background check on me, because I sure know I have a past, too. I’m so happy that when Jesus came and took on flesh and walked among men, he came and sat with the prostitutes and criminals… He said, ‘ I didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners unto repentance’; so people don’t understand or know what God is doing. I myself don’t know what God is doing, because He says His ways are not mine. So whatever He’s doing concerning Kelly, something good is gonna happen.”