Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ladies In Full Effect. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ladies In Full Effect, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
Ladies In Full Effect began in 2005 as a girls youth empowerment group. With all of the exceptional young ladies we mentored, ages 11-18, we began doing unique outreach initiatives designed to give back to our community in fun and interactive ways using the special talents of each of the girls. We went all around the city doing skits, spoken word, singing, dancing, rapping, and much more.
As the years moved along, the girls group fizzled out, and we were thrust into street ministry where we would use our skills in hip hop to gain the attention of the audience that we were ministering to. We absolutely enjoyed engaging with the attendees in this manner. They would also enjoy us so much that they began asking if we were rappers and wanted to know where they could find our music. On those occasions the answer, with a smile, was simply, “No. We are not rappers”.
That was until one day in 2019, while listening to the iconic 90’s group Digable Planets timeless song ‘Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like That)’, we became inspired to create and drop our first single, “Christ Like That”. We received raved reviews from our peers and others alike which then inspired us to explore dropping our first album, Book of LIFE.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
What sets Ladies In Full Effect apart from the average artist is first, we are biological sisters that are young at heart. We gained the love for music in our childhood as we grew up in the choirs of musically influential churches lead by great spiritual leaders/families such as Edwin Hawkins and The Hawkins Family of Oakland, California and Pastor Jerry D Black of Beulah Missionary Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga.
We believe people today need to see that families can work together to do great things and people should know that it’s never too late to follow their dreams.
Ladies In Full Effect as an outreach ministry began serving in the youth departments of other ministries that were trying to find creative ways to engage with the youth growing up in the church. Although it was about teaching, preaching, service, and workshops at the time, our music gained the attention of the youth as well as the adults.
At first, you could hear the groaning when we would be introduced as rappers. It was unexpected for us to have great lyrical content and beats that could move a crowd. Let’s just be real. We’re women, a little older, and many of the youth were there because their parents made them come. It would turn out that at the end of the events the people would come to us and give us great complements and encouragement to keep doing what we were doing. So we did.
As we learned more about the industry, we began building a brand that includes our clothing brand called TL3, which stands for Truth Love Light LIFE, that features our logo of a phoenix infused with a lion which is our perspective animals that we personally identify with.
TiffLIFE with the rise like a phoenix in her lyrics and Pastor T the Tanimal with her unique growl as she lays her lyrics on you.
We believe that we have been divinely prepared for our mission to bring LIFE as we are living in a time of what some call a “death culture”. We want our fans and followers to know that we represent LIFE and that we want them to represent LIFE too. That could mean Living In Full Effect, Loving In Full Effect, or the deep, Listening Intently For Encouragement or Learning Infinitely Flourishing Eternally. Just represent LIFE to its fullest!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
We had to learn not put limits on who we are called to be. Many people find one niche they may be really good at and get the most response from and stay there. With all of the additions to Ladies In Full Effect we had to stop saying who or what we were NOT when others would recognize the gift.
A perfect example of that is our second debut album called Book of LIFE: Abundant LIFE. As we kept the musical journey going, we found ourselves to have many creative niches such as creative design, videography, photography, clothing design, event planning, marketing, networking, and much more. We’ve all heard it before. “Be all you can be”!
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Our mission is to bring LIFE through ministry, leadership, and to serve. We want to promote unity, education, and cohesion in our communities by influencing lives through the philosophy of Christ, and have fun doing it!
Contact Info:
- Website: BookofLIFEMusic.com
- Instagram: @ladiesinfulleffectinc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LadiesInFullEffectInc?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Youtube: @LIFE205
- Other: LadiesInFullEffect.org
Image Credits
Ladies In Full Effect