MUSIC/COMEDY

Singer-comedian duo The Manns playing in LR

Tamela and David Mann — along with their children David Mann Jr. and Tia Mann — will bring their combo of faith, laughter and music to Second Baptist Church on Saturday, during the Little Rock stop for their concert and comedy show, Mann’s World Family Tour.
Tamela and David Mann — along with their children David Mann Jr. and Tia Mann — will bring their combo of faith, laughter and music to Second Baptist Church on Saturday, during the Little Rock stop for their concert and comedy show, Mann’s World Family Tour.

You may have first come to know them as a father-and-daughter duo -- with his egregious onscreen outfit choices melting your eyeballs -- in Tyler Perry's 2008 movie Meet the Browns.

From the Meet the Browns play and movie, along with other Tyler Perry productions, Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Tamela and her husband, comedian David Mann, have gone on to what seems to be myriad other projects ... the Bounce TV sitcom Mann & Wife, TV One docudrama The Manns, and the latest, the BET show It's a Mann's World, offering a peek into that world.

Mann’s World Family Tour, a Concert and Comedy Show

7- 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Second Baptist Church, 1709 John Barrow Road, Little Rock

Advance tickets; $25-30 ($5 more day of show)

Kingdomtickets.com; Mannstour.com; (407) 490-2547

They're so popular, the $75 VIP tickets for the Manns' Saturday show at Second Baptist Church, 1709 John Barrow Road, have sold out. Those tickets will afford holders seats up front as well as a meet-and-greet with the Manns, photo opportunities included.

The Dallas-based couple will appear with their son, David Mann Jr., and daughter Tia Mann, both of whom co-star on Mann's World, during the fall tour of a live show that has been described as "an evening of music, comedy and family entertainment."

OK, so what's really going to happen? Will David Mann be wearing those, ahem, colorful sartorial ensembles that made him famous as "Mr. Brown"? Will he do the side-splitting, high-pitched performance of "This Is Your Granddaddy," which he so famously sang in the Meet the Browns movie and onstage, wearing what can best be described as a Dennis the Menace wig gone wrong?

The crowd should, as Mann puts it, "expect the unexpected" the night of the show, of which he's executive producer.

"It's not just a party, it's not just comedy, not just singing; it's a full family experience," he says. "It's not just '[Put up] microphones and let's go.' It's a full production."

According to CBN.com, the website of gospel network CBN, The Manns met in high school. David Mann sings also; both are former members of Kirk Franklin's first gospel group, Kirk Franklin and the Family. Meeting Perry while on tour with that group, they went on to star in Perry's plays as Leroy Brown and his daughter, Cora Simmons. Then came the movies (Meet the Browns, Madea Goes to Jail, Madea's Big Happy Family) and the Meet the Browns television series, which ran on TBS from 2009-2011.

Tamela Mann is known for the 2012 hit "Take Me to the King" and her song "Change Me" is her fifth No. 1 song on the Billboard Gospel Radio Chart. She won a 2017 Grammy for Best Gospel Performance for "God Provides." David Mann has received an NAACP Image award.

They had no idea they would become this popular, David Mann says: "We were all just trying to make the best plays, movies, television shows that we could make. ... we were just hoping that we put something good out there and the people would like it."

"We kind of touch home with everybody," Tamela Mann says. "A lot of people, from watching the shows and everything, feel like they really already know us. It's like a family feeling. And then, to be able to come and to be able to give someone a hug and [they] actually get to meet and greet us and then also have a picture with us -- it's ... almost like you're just meeting [your] extended family, for the first time."

David Mann adds, "And a lot of people can identify with us as a family. We go through the same problems, issues, triumphs, everything, just like everybody else. And so I think we become relatable in that sense that, hey, we're just like the guy next door. It just happens to be we're on television."

Tamela Mann, 51, has been singing since the age of 8. When it comes to singing versus acting, singing is her "first love."

"I enjoy acting but singing is like, oh my God" -- she searches for words. "It's like it brings me such joy to just be able to sing and to bring hope and inspiration to people and to give joy to other people but ... it's my everything."

Her husband helps her out. "Singing she loves; acting she likes."

Despite their multifaceted careers, the couple say they have no problem keeping their affairs in order.

"I think you can get scatterbrained and you have so many irons in the fire that nothing gets completed," David Mann says. "Whatever task we have in front of us at hand, we make sure we complete it and then we move on to the next task," while giving their marriage top priority.

Of all the messages the Manns have brought their audiences, the most important may be that unlike church and state, church and comedy should not be kept separate.

David Mann says, "It gives me the opportunity to showcase the gift that God has given me with the laughter. It's a great thing to ... bring hope to somebody who may come to the show [who's] down and they just need that two and a half hours, or however long the show is, to just be put in a position where 'OK, I laughed, I can make it now.'"

Weekend on 09/21/2017

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