In 1996, rap legend Tupac Shakur reached out to adult director Ron Hightower to direct his “How Do You Want It” music video. With that entry into the music world, Hightower said goodbye to the industry in which he acted, produced, and directed over 500 projects and pioneered the Black Erotica genre. Over the next seven years Hightower would direct 20 music videos, 15 of which would head straight to #1 on MTV and BET for artists including Faith Evans, Too Short, KC and JoJo, Slick Rick, and Master P. Hot off of features in The Source and Vibe magazines, Hightower will return to adult, as he takes on Evolution Erotica’s new “Race Mixers” line.

“He is the Greg Dark of the hip hop world,” Evolution owner Tom Byron said of Hightower’s hiring. “I am extremely excited to have him on board and I think his vision and talent will mesh very well with the higher end product we are putting out at Evolution.”

Hightower is excited to be returning to adult as well. But, why the comeback? “I had some friends who were starting an adult website,” Hightower said. “They had shot a scene and asked me to look at it for pointers. It was a train wreck. I am in development for a mainstream movie and I had a few days off, so I told them I would re-shoot the scene for them and give them some pointers as to what to do. When we got done I was looking around like ‘Who’s next? Where’s my next scene?’ I knew I had to get back in.”

But what will the new Ron Hightower adult look like? “I can easily say that I am a much better director than I was when I was coming up in the business. I have learned so much both technical and technique over the past seven years. There are so many elements of my hip hop and music video education that I will be working into my new adult projects. But don’t expect this stuff to look like all the other ‘hip hop porn’ out there. Evolution wants a new feel to its movies and I look forward to the challenge of reinventing the genre I helped to create a decade ago with a new twist on the vignette format.”

Hightower is wrapping up production on his first Evolution project, “Race Mixers Episode 1.” The line will be a vignette driven interracial series, the intricacies of which will evolve into ongoing storyline as the series progresses akin to a soap opera where characters from one vignette interact with characters from another weaving the world of Race Mixers. The first installment features Justin Slayer, Sean Michaels, Ashley Long, Kayla, Rhiannon Bray, Sheridan Leigh, Devin Deray, Micky G., J-Monty, Boz, and on the DVD 2-Disk set, a bonus scene featuring Cytheria.