Interviews
Israel Houghton
ARW: Did you know before working with Fred that you were called to music ministry?
IH: Oh, definitely, yeah. I have pretty much known that through the better portion of my life.
ARW: Your first project New Season, which you spoke of earlier, was critically acclaimed and a phenomenal project. Now you have Real, which is just as awesome…could you speak a little bit about Real?
IH: Sure. From the very beginning, we set out to make a classic record. And I felt like the ingredients for that would include doing it big. Doing it authentic. Doing it real. Using horns and strings. We even went so far as to get Andrae Crouch’s singers to sing on it. We had a blast making the record. You’ve heard the record so all of the songs kinda flow into each other. We wanted to make a record like Andrae used to make back in the day. With Andrae’s records, you know it was going to have all kinds of hits on it and you were going to listen to it for a long time. I don’t know about the “hits” part [in reference to Real] but listening to it in a timeless fashion was our goal. I really felt like we met that goal.
ARW: Well, I loved the project. It definitely had a “retro” feel.
IH: Right.
ARW: Obviously, you’re called to the ministry of praise and worship. What do you think God’s mandate is for you in reference to praise and worship?
IH: You know, a year ago I probably couldn’t answer that question – at least not soundly. But now I can. Six months ago, we, New Breed, sat down and began to put together our vision. Everyone spoke about what they felt New Breed was about. One of the people helping us, sort of a professional person in that area, at the end of our whole mission statement wrote “WHY?” It kinda messed me up for a while because I had never thought of that. He said, “Here’s our vision and here’s our mission, but why?” It threw me for a good bit. I just wasn’t thinking in those terms.
Then I heard the Lord say, “I made a promise that my glory would cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. And your job is to be one of those whose job it is to bring the sound of that glory until the whole earth is covered.” In other words, [I knew He was saying], “You’re going to be doing this for the rest of your life and you’re going to pass it on to your children and their children. And all you’re going to do is paint the Earth with the sound of what I’m doing.”
