Keri Hilson joins Trending to chat about 'Hip Hop Family Christmas Wedding,' working with Jamie Foxx, and her music career. 


Between Bells

Singer Keri Hilson Talks 'Hip Hop Family Christmas Wedding' 

from executive producer Jamie Foxx, the anticipated sequel, Hip hop family christmas wedding is almost here. That's right. It's starring Neo Bow, wow and Terrence J and the cast is back and still finding themselves surrounded by drama this time with a christmas wedding bells ringing. That sounds like a recipe for success here. So I sat down with the star of the film, Kari Hilson to discuss the new movie plus her music career. Take a look. So carrie, great to have you here. Let's talk about hip hop family christmas wedding. This film pretty much picks up where the first one ended. Your character is getting engaged. So what's been your favorite part about being part of this project? Well, we saw me get engaged in the original film last year, uh, called hip Hop Family christmas. Now I'm getting hitched. Um, and this role was just really exciting. It was a lot of fun for me uh, to pretend that I'm getting married and uh allow and be a part of all the hygiene and the drama that ensues at holiday time for most families and wedding time. So we're doubling those up and it's a lot of fun. I mean you're not just getting married just to anybody. I mean for our viewers who aren't familiar, you're getting married to Neo in this film. I mean, does Neo make a good pretend fiance? Um, absolutely. Uh, at least with this character, he's very protective of us. Um, he's very communicative. He's very expressive. Um, he's gentle with Jessica. So yeah, absolutely. And I mean you guys have a hit rate, but you guys have done music together in the past. Is it weird to sort of almost come full circle where you're doing this video with this movie with him and you're getting married to him? Yes. Um it's been very strange. I was telling someone earlier we've been friends, you know, really good friends when he, when he had his first child, he sent me pictures of her from the hospital. You know, we've been friends for a very long time and it was very awkward the first time we had to kiss. We I said nothing about it. We tried to avoid it even and during the last final tape, because we were nailing the scene during the final take, the director yells out, okay, kiss. You're both like, yeah, do we do, what do you go first? Do I go first? Who does this? Exactly like uh it was, I mean, we made it not low awkward I think, but it was absolutely that way broke away. Like that seems like the typical response. If you ever make out with your friend, everybody is basically giving you that same, like that happened. Sorry, that that happened. You know, we're all obsessed carry with christmas and holiday movies, why do you think fans will resonate with hip hop, family christmas wedding? Well, I think uh it's giving us an opportunity a glimpse into a black family at holiday time. Um, and this is still new in the industry. Um I'd be remiss to say that a story, you know, being presented to the masses of a black family at christmas time. I have had a film like that prior called almost christmas, but um we're just seeing that in in recent decades, so we're still on the cusp of, of seeing that story and I think that's what for me, makes it special. It's authentic to how we relate to each other. It's authentic to the things that we're interested in, the things that we do other than the exaggerations to the story because it's, it's a film, you know, but that's what makes it special for me and for it to be placed somewhere like Viacom, it's a great opportunity to be a part of an authentic black story and what I hope to become a yearly tradition of a film. I hope so too. And look, the names attached this, we were just talking about Neo, I mean it's you Neo, you have bow attached to this? Our buddy, Terrence J is attached, this Jamie Foxx is the executive producer of this project. I mean what was it like to work with him? How do you, how does he sort of make this film, what it is? Well, he doesn't like the Wizard of Oz to be frank uh because we Jamie if he ever visited set, I never saw him um either year. So I think that he is pushing the buttons, he's orchestrating a lot, He's making sure that, that he's on top of the story and making sure that we're all happy from afar. Um, he's a busy guy. He's got a movie deal and he's pumping them out great projects, great stories and uh, I think while we're in production, he's in pre production or post production with another film. So Jamie Foxx is a very busy guy. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, so are you, I mean your music career, iconic, you had huge hits, pretty girl rock, knock you down. One of my favorite tracks that you've done by the way with Neo also, but you took a pretty long hiatus from music. So how did your break impact your sound and the artist you are today? Did it impact you at all? Absolutely. Breaks are necessary. You know, um, what it means to be an artist is to express and to give of yourself in true vulnerability and uh you're not able to do that. Um, if you don't feel your own tank, if you don't fight to protect your sanity and for me that's what the journey was about. It's about loving me again. It was about learning me newly um, and fully and completely and wholeheartedly accepting every piece of me and and just being able to give people, um, a new ride, a new, evolved sense of who I am. Um, that was important to me. I didn't want to just put out things that weren't authentic to me. Special thanks to Kari Hilson, Hip hop, family christmas, wedding premieres Wednesday november the 30th, at eight p.m. Eastern on VH one.