Erica Campbell pours her most vulnerable self into new album, ‘I Love You’

When gospel icon Erica Campbell starting recording her self-reflective new album, I Love You, two years before the pandemic, she expected it to drop then. Now, after five years, Campbell’s glad it took as long as it did because she was able to really pour her all into the passion project.

The five-time Grammy winner told ABC Audio ahead of the album’s release on September 15 that listeners will get the most vulnerable version of herself she’s ever been in music.

“[You’ll get] all of me,” Campbell said, when asked just how much of her life story is interpolated in the album. 

“You’ll get my heart and my pain. You’ll get my joy, my excitement. You’ll hear my repentance,” she said.

Unlike other artists who may be afraid of sharing the good and the bad, Campbell said she doesn’t mind because “nothing changes about me when I share it. I’m still Erica.”

But she’s a new-season Erica who, over the course of making the album, “learned so much” about herself. 

“My experiences have stretched me, challenged me,” Campbell said. “Whenever I learn a lesson, if it’s something that I believe somebody else could possibly face and could help them, I’m always willing to share. So I had to go through the stuff that I had to go through to get the record that I have.”

Which is why she’s excited to finally share it with the world.  

And while some may love it and some may not, Campbell said of the album, “There is so much heart and so much truth and love and fun and joy in this record, you kind of can’t deny it.”

Erica Campbell’s new album I Love You is available for streaming on major platforms. 

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