Kelly Rowland’s dog has hijacked our phone interview.

“Stop it!” Rowland says over strident barks. “Don’t you dare.”

“I hope you’re talking to the dog.”

Rowland is spending the day at her Houston home (she also has a house in Miami), but it’s no time for relaxation. She’s been promoting her second solo album Ms. Kelly (out in stores this week) for a few months and won’t stop the campaign any time soon (she hopes to tour late this year).

It’s a lot of work, but Rowland isn’t complaining.

She’s just happy Ms. Kelly is seeing the light of day. Rowland had been working on the record – or at least a record – for nearly three years. The album’s original release date, under a different name, was over a year ago, but Rowland realized it wasn’t turning out to be the album she wanted. So she scrapped it.

“I was missing an element,” says the 26-year-old. “I was missing my youthful element in the whole record. There were so many mid-tempos and ballads, I needed a few up-tempos on there!”

She knew what she wanted and how she wanted to do it because Rowland, the former Destiny’s Child member, looks back at her debut solo album, 2002’s Simply Deep, with a hint of regret.

Worldwide, it was a relative success, selling over two million copies. In the U.S., it sold around 600,000 copies, about the same amount Destiny’s Child albums sold in their first weeks of release. The figures weren’t low enough to be considered a flop, though nothing to celebrate.

And not something she speaks too highly of now.

“I was rushed on the last record,” Rowland says. “My label rushed me because of the momentum from Dilemma.” Dilemma, a duet with rapper Nelly, stayed at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for an impressive 10 weeks and earned the pair a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

“I wanted to make sure that I was able to take my time with this record.”

So with no pressure to meet any record label deadlines, Rowland did just that.

The finished product, she says, introduces Kelly Rowland to the world, again, “away from Destiny’s Child.”

“I feel like I’m a woman now,” Rowland says. “I’ve come into my own and I know what I want and I’m confident and I’m sure of myself.

“Not saying that I wasn’t before,” she continues, “but it takes years to get to that point and I’m still not at the full potential that I could be, but that’s what life is about. You can’t just expect to be great overnight.”

Rowland also used Ms. Kelly as a form of therapy.

She was set to wed Dallas Coyboys safety Roy Williams in 2005, but they ended the relationship two months before the wedding date.

“For me, [the album] was very therapeutic,” she said. “I had the chance to express myself in the studio. I talk about my personal life but it’s not to the point where it was something I didn’t want to say. I always made sure it was something I felt comfortable saying.”

With the album in stores, Rowland can now focus on touring, something she says is her favourite part of the music business.

“I’ve already started to think of who I would love to tour with. Justin [Timberlake] has already gone out but I would love a great fun tour, like with Nelly Furtado or Rihanna.”

Ladies, Ms. Kelly awaits a response.


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