Fresh off the success of their No. 1 sophomore album, Pretty Ricky kicked off their “Late Night Special Tour” in support of their album of the same name in Clearwater Tuesday. Raena Boston recently caught up with Spectacular, Baby Blue, Pleasure and Slick ‘Em’ to discuss sex, rumors and reversing the sophomore jinx.

Montage: With 132,000 copies sold in first week sales, how did you avoid the sophomore jinx?

Pretty Ricky: Hard work and dedication. We went in the studio, and everybody was trying to tell us we were gonna have this sophomore jinx. The reason a lot of artists have unsuccessful second albums is because their first album is created with a buzz in the streets, and they go out – it’s pre-recorded music – the record label comes down, signs the artist, puts the album out, and if the artist is successful enough to have a second album, now the record label wants to be more involved. They put them in the studio with different writers, different producers, and you end up losing the essence of the artist that you loved in the first place. We cut the record label out. We went on our own, you know, wrote everything by our self, worked with an exclusive production company called Music Royale Production and made sure we gave all the girls Pretty Ricky. See, we know what the ladies want; we know what the ladies need. We’re (their) main course, appetizer and dessert.

M: Rumors are running rampant that Pretty Ricky is breaking up. Is there any truth to that?

PR: Naw, man. They’re just rumors. When we heard the rumors we were overseas working together. So I don’t know how you’re breaking up if you’re overseas, or how we’re breaking up if we’re on the way to your city like Diddy.

M: Is there any truth to the rumor that Pleasure has a solo album coming out?

PR: You heard wrong man; right now we’re just focusing on Pretty Ricky right now. That’s what it is. Pretty Ricky is one and we’re just focusing on that right now.

M: Back to the Late Night Special album – what’s going to be the next single?

PR: Should I tell her the next single? The next single is “Push It Baby.” We shot the video over in Prague. Basically, y’all just gotta see it. We spent a lot of money on this video to make sure that it was an incredible video, but it’ll be out in a couple of weeks. And we got a surprise for ya on that thang. So just look out for it. Coming up we got a clothing line that we’re launching called Pretty Clothing, which is a female clothing line. It consists of lingerie, you know, boy shorts. Everything that makes a girl feel sexy.

M: Basically to go along with this Late Night Special concept, right?

PR: Yeah, you know, everything we do is for the ladies.

M: Do you all write your own music?

PR: We cut the label out. We write our own music, produce our own music. You know we got an exclusive production company – man we do it all, we do it all on our own.

M: I was watching Pretty Ricky’s BET Top 25 Countdown and there were a lot of R & B songs. Would you say your sound is more R & B influenced or Rap influenced? PR: We got both influences. We’re the best of both worlds. That’s one thing about Pretty Ricky, that’s what actually separates us from the rest of the bubblegum groups. We just talk about real life things. I mean, it’s a lot of artists talking about stuff they ain’t never even went through. They talk about killing and drug dealing, but they ain’t never sold nothing and they ain’t never popped nothing. You got Pretty Ricky. See, we talk about what we know about. Our specialty is ladies. That’s why we got this album, Late Night Special, the Pretty Clothing and so much more coming from the group Pretty Ricky.

M: Your lyrics are very sexual. What does your mama think about your lyrics? PR: What does your mama think about me getting your number?

M: Will there ever be a Pretty Ricky album that is less sexual in content?

PR: Huh? Who? What? See, Pretty Ricky is Pretty Ricky, that’s the thing, man. We’re gonna keep giving these ladies what they want. That’s the base of our group. Don’t just think that everything we talk about is sex – I mean, if you actually took a listen to the album, you’ll see it’s songs about being in love as well. The whole album is about making love and being in love. We cover all the lover boy basics because that’s what we are. We love the ladies.