Didn’t We Almost Have It All?: 90s Girl Groups That Almost Became Superstars

Jay Ray
00:00:00
Hey, what's up, good people? It's Jay Ray, the co host of Q Points, and I wanted to come to you because there are two really important ways that you can support our show.
One is by subscribing to it wherever you listen to or watch your podcast. Cue Points is pretty much everywhere.
The other thing that you can do is you can visit us on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify and on podchaser, and you can leave us a star rating. Please rate us five stars because you know, you, you love Cue Points.
And on Apple Podcasts and on podchaser, you can actually leave us a written review.
It's not required, but it really does help to spread the word about the show and it helps people to discover it as they're looking for new podcasts to listen to. We're always appreciative of you supporting Cue Points. We thank you so much for all that you've done for us so far and enjoy the show.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:01:20
Good evening and welcome back to Q Points, your favorite podcast for all things black music related. Dropping the needle on black music history. I am DJ Sir Daniel.

Jay Ray
00:01:30
My name is J. Ray, also known by my government. My name is Jay Ray, also known by my government as Johnny Rae Kornegay iii. What's happening, people?

DJ Sir Daniel
00:01:42
Listen, if you, if you, if you, if your brain hasn't been buffering like J Ray's just now and your, your Twitter timeline is out of sync, but you're here with us right now, it's gonna be okay. Things have been weird. Just be thankful you're not stuck on a plane or a train or in a thunderstorm somewhere.
You're here with us right now, so we are so happy to see you. J Ray. What's the business, man? How you, how you been? How have you been?

Jay Ray
00:02:12
Oh, Sir Daniel, so, so much to check in on. I will definitely, we'll definitely get into that in this next segment, but generally I am. Well, how are you doing?

DJ Sir Daniel
00:02:25
I can say this, I say the same thing.
I share the same sentiments, and I think both of us kind of are like, we're, we're, again, we're doing this middle aged thing and I'm sure a lot of you out there can relate when. We'll, we'll catch up on that a little bit later.
But J Ray, please share with the folks how they can maintain contact with us and never, ever miss out on an episode of Cue Points or whatever it is we're doing.

Jay Ray
00:02:48
Check it out, y'all. So, so please be sure that y'all are fully Subscribed to Q Points.
If you are tuning into the show and you're like, I want to get all the stuff that they talk about, including the show notes for this show, you need to go ahead and join the newsletter. The newsletter is going to be back for the new year tomorrow, so we're super excited about that. So make sure that you sign up for the newsletter.
Also subscribe. So we got some new new Sir Daniel done did a mix for the Insiders Max members is so hot.
And in order for you to get it, you have to subscribe and become an Insiders Max member of Q Points. You can do that by heading over to our website@qpoints.com and just click on that subscribe button.
And if you are like, listen, I think those guys are dope. I just want to give them, you know what I'm saying? Show them a little love, you can leave us a tip. You can go on over on Patreon, leave Q Points.
A tip. Exactly. Do we show you a little shoulder, you know what I'm saying? And you can leave us a tip over on Patreon.
And last but certainly not least, you can buy see that? See that shirt that DJ Sir Daniel has on the toys, bikes, video games, fresh new kicks. Now that was a special.
That was a special for the holiday that ain't up no more holiday. But you can buy other stuff.
So going over to the store, it was limited going over to the store store.qpoints.com and you can buy some fresh new stuff over there. So yeah, that's what they can do.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:04:33
I love it. I love it. I love it. Let's give a shout out.
You know, I love all of our Cue Points Insiders, but this most recent Cue Point insider has a special place in my heart.
He's, he's definitely a good friend and I know a lot of times you hear on the Internet about stop worrying about your friends supporting you and your endeavors online or your business or whatever. And that's true. But it feels extra special when somebody that you do know supports you.
And I want to shout out Gil Shannon up in Chicago for becoming a the latest Q Point Insider. So be like Gil. Be fresh and fly and staying up on everything QO related and become a Q Points Insider.
Gil is about to get down with that mix if and that mix is specially done for tonight's episode of of what that Were of Cue Points where we're speaking regarding 90s girl groups. And Trey and I want to shout out everybody in the chat tonight. We got Trey Trey's been rocking his. His tote bag, and we. I see Wani in the building.
Big Mike is in the building. Mark McPherson. You know, all our people are with us tonight, and it makes me feel so good.
And I know they're spreading the good word about cue points. So please welcome. And we're so glad that you're here safe and sound, listening to key points this evening.
So, speaking of being in that number and still being here, I'm happy to be here. But, Jay Ray, I'm especially happy to see you here because it's been a. It's been a weird week for you, huh?

Jay Ray
00:06:10
It has been a weird week. So check it, y'all. Listen to your body is the. The. The. The. My message for the week.
So what y'all don't know is after last week's show, I began to feel some weirdness in my chest, in the hearts area. And, Sir Daniel, that is not a place where you want to feel things. You want to feel your heart beating, and that's it.
But I started to feel, like, a little bit of pain, right? And I went to the doctor on Monday, and they did an ekg and they saw something. Y'all, my eye. Listen. I was giving a Fred Sanford.
I was so scared, like, I was gonna go see Elizabeth. It was so frightening. So I was in the emergency, so I was sent from the urgent care to the emergency room. And good news is, I'm fine.
They done did all the blood work. They tested the ticker. They did all the things. And the doctor said the words, you are not having a heart attack. We don't know what happened.
You know, could be stress, but it wasn't a heart attack. Your heart's fine. Blood work looks good. Your cholesterol's too high. Handle that. So I was scared. Like, I was so scared.
And so this week has really been. I've been since Monday, Sir Daniel, just trying to be more mindful about how I work, about how I engage.
Because what's most important for me is that I'm here. And the way that I can be here is by putting less pressure on myself. And so I am learning to do that.
And so that's my note for folks tonight is show yourself, Grace, and listen to your body and go get yourself checked out.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:08:16
If you feel anything, you know, you're absolutely right. And if you know Jerry like I know Jerry, you know, J. Ray is a workhorse. You know, J. Ray puts 150% into everything that he does.
And sometimes it's to the detriment of other things to be taken care of. But I like you, Jerry.
I also had, not a scare per se, but I, I wasn't telling people this, but I was having these dizzy spells, you know, which I found very weird. And I recently had my, had a checkup as well.
And I told my doctor and you know, got the same thing, like, you're fine, nothing looks weird in the blood except your ldl, your, your bad cholesterol. So. But that doesn't necessarily coincide with the dizziness, but it's something that I have to keep monitoring.
And I'm like you, at this age, we cannot, we can't take anything for granted. And I don't know if many of you are familiar with here in, in the, in Atlanta.
A very prominent and well respected gospel, gospel artist here in Atlanta passed away at the very young age of 44. Talking about Kevin Lemons. Kevin Lemons passed away of a heart attack, if I'm not mistaken. And was. Is much younger than us.
And that, you know, whenever I hear things about that, things like that peers passing away at such young ages that always, you know, it's always a reminder like, hey, take care of ourselves, do what we need to do. Great. Show yourself some grace and space like you said. And yeah, J.
Ray and I talk about this all the time and I hope that you listening and watching that you also have a friend, a confidant that you talk to about these health matters.
Because while we're sharing, you know, news about music and you know, Tony sharing cue points with each other and say, hey, did you listen to the last episode? You know, hey, by the way, have you been to the doctor recently? You know, have you had your checkup?
Because listen, we gotta check in on each other big time now more than ever.
So I'm glad to hear that you're doing well, J Ray, and that you are not out here showing your butts like certain hip hop legends who probably needs to get checked, checked up and checked in somewhere on their own. But you know, we're going to talk about on however comma and we were unable to do however comma this past week because of, because J.
Ray was dealing with his health. So I know you're going to show us some grace and space for that because health comes first. But oh boy, we got so much to catch up on.
On however comma. R. Kelly is back in the news. Keith. Keith Murray is showing his behind all over the place. We've got so much to talk about.
But I know, J Ray, tonight you wanted to Speak specifically about a young man by the name of Tay K. And you were schooling me on, on this epic drama right around with Tay K. Please tell me about, Let us everybody know about Tay K. Yeah, so.

Jay Ray
00:11:41
Okay, so one of the things that was so interesting is I got wind of a tweet thread from Tay K. So to give y'all some backstory because if you're listening to however comma, you probably. I'm sorry, if you're listening to Q points.
If you're listening to Q points, you probably don't know who Tay K is. So let me give you a high level rundown. Tay K. Three, four years ago, Tay K was an upand cominging 15, 16 year old rapper.
I didn't know anything about him at that time because one, he was doing drill. Two, he was doing, he was, he was young. So I had nothing to do with Tay K.
But anyway, he was convicted of committing a crime and was on house arrest, decided that he was going to cut off his house arrest bracelet and go on the run. And so while on.
And so he was on house arrest due to participating in some sort of robbery or something, but then he cut off the ankle bracelet, went on a race, and in that process, allegedly was part of someone died. Not saying that he still gotta go to trial for that, but. But this child made a song about it and that's when he blew up.
He made a song called the Race. You can watch the video, it's still on YouTube.
And Tay K is literally rapping about the crimes, the alleged crimes that he allegedly committed while on the run. And so they rearrested, they arrested Tay K and Tay K was convicted and is in jail. So anyway, that's the really short story of Tay K.
So Tay K's been in prison. He was convicted and sentenced to 55 years for that robbery. Because someone died during that robbery. He actually got more time than the other people.
Right. So he got 55 years. This is, this is a child, right? So he's going to be in his 60s when he. Or right about 60 when he's able to be released.
But anyway, on January 5th, he got took to the Twitter. I don't know how the people use Twitter in prison, but apparently that's the thing.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:14:16
Oh, they do it all in prison, right? Go ahead, we'll talk about that.

Jay Ray
00:14:20
So he said in the Twitter, I really just need one chance at adulthood. I bet if I was a little white kid, they wouldn't give me no 55 years for a crime I was alleged to play the most insignificant role in.
When I was 16, they would have rightfully argued that my mind wasn't fully developed and gave me rehabilitation and a second chance at adulthood. He also said, one of my co defendants was a white girl who was 16 just like me.
They didn't certify her as an adult, but they certified me and pimp, that's the other person who participated as adults. Pimp got 30, I got 55. She ended up getting 10 years of probation without no deal. That girl home right now.
So I was reading this and thinking, young man, young man, at no point in this entire experience have I heard any repent, any feeling sorry, any. Anything to the respect of, okay, yeah, listen, I did some messed up stuff, right? And not only that, why are we doing this on Twitter?
Why are we doing. Why are we doing this on Twitter? I need this young man to work on himself and figure this. It was just a mess. And I'm like, what?

DJ Sir Daniel
00:16:05
So in Tay K. Well, not even defense, but Tay K was correct. The. The frontal lobe of human beings is not fully formed until well after the age of 25.
So he's correct about that. However, I do think he is somebody. He must have learned that reading psychology books that they have there in prison.
So he's like, oh, this sounds good. So let me go ahead and put it out there. And he's not completely wrong. At the same time, I'm. I'mma speak in that black mama voice now.
You know, you know, what do we. What are all black kids told? All black kids get the talk.

Jay Ray
00:16:47
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:16:47
You have to do. You have to do twice as better to get half as much as the other counterparts. You are going to get more time than that young white girl. Absolutely.
You're going to get more time. So I don't know. I don't know if this generation thinks that they're beyond that, but. But I think it still rings true.
And I don't know, maybe somebody failed him and didn't give him the talk. I don't know. But as far as what you were saying, jre, about how was he tweeting from prison? We got prisoners that got whole Tik Tok accounts.
They've got Instagram accounts. They're creating content. They're creating content in prison.

Jay Ray
00:17:27
Oh, they're doing like only fans in.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:17:30
Prison and making and making money off of it. So. And it's all due to people risking their jobs and their lives and their freedom to smuggle all this stuff into prisons.
Phones are getting smuggled into prison all the time. So people are. People are creating whole albums behind. From behind bars using these phones. So it's very possible it. Him tweeting is the bear.
The bare minimum of what they're doing behind prison. So, yeah, there's a lot going on behind prison, and maybe somebody will. They.
There was a thing that was a thing for a while where a lot of especially young women that were working in these detention centers.
Every time you turned around, especially here in Georgia, every time you turned around, there was a whole slew of them getting caught, going, going to prison because they were smuggling contraband into the jails or they were also ending up pregnant.

Jay Ray
00:18:30
Wow. Okay.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:18:32
Yeah.

Jay Ray
00:18:32
All right.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:18:32
So there's that. So there's that. But if we. We will really go in on however comma about this kind of stuff.
So this is the kind of content you'll get on however comma it does have a music slant. But we talk about all the other juicy stuff that's going on in our world right now, and Twitter is definitely on fire. My timeline.
My timeline is in a strange loop right right now. It's crazy. I will see, like, the same 10, 15 tweets over and over again. It's wild.
I am happy Azalea Banks is back on Twitter, but I don't know, something is crazy going on about the Twitter algorithm right now.

Jay Ray
00:19:10
Yeah, I haven't been paying too much attention to Twitter this week. I'll probably get into my Twitter bag this weekend and see what's really going on.
But one of the things, Sir Daniel, that you actually brought to my attention, and this is actually some really good music news, right? So this year, hip hop's turns 50.
And one of the things that has happened over the years is there hasn't been a lot of education to rappers about rapping, about the history, because now we're so far along, right before we learned all of our hip hop history by one experience in it or having these stories being told, but now we're at the point where if folks want to learn it, they got to go to school. You know what I'm saying? They got to get some school. So you actually brought to my attention the fact that Lupe Fiasco is going to be teaching.
So Lupe Fiasco is going to be teaching rap, but he's part of MIT's MLK visiting professor program, and he was announced as part of their 2022-2023 appointments. So he is in the arts and humanities area. He's listed on the website and everything. And this is super dope.
So he's actually going to be in the classroom teaching these folks that take his class about rapping and hip hop history. And that was super dope to hear.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:20:57
I love it. I love it. There have been sprinkled about. There have been a few other people that have taught courses on hip hop. Hip hop has ended up.
Remember there was a course on little Kim and one woman's professor had a course on little Kim. So it makes total sense. We've been around for 50 years now.
We've got a whole of a big museum about to be opened up with all kinds of artifacts and paraphernalia. And now it just makes sense that people are going to be able to have a full syllabus and learn history about the. The culture.
A lot of people borrow from the culture because it looks shiny and it looks. It's. It's cute and it's fun, but they don't know context.
And so a lot of times that breeze, if you don't know context and you burn from the culture, that breeds a lot of. A lot of. And not envy, but it breeds a lot of bad blood.
It reads a lot of, you know, horrific things, bad relations in the communities that are borrowing from things. And I just think it's a. It's about time and I'm glad that Lupe is a part of it.
There are certain people that can be trusted with the culture and I think he. He can probably prove himself as one of those people.

Jay Ray
00:22:15
Yeah. And in addition to him. Billboard. So actually you can read about both of these if you join the newsletter.
We'll make sure that those links are in there for you. But Mickey Fax as well. So Mickey Fax has launched a school. It's called Pendom Inc. Which I thought was really fun. So pen dumb and then ink and then.
So it looks like the courses that'll be available for this school, which is really dope, is going to be. There'll be one teaching rap, you know, rap techniques, stuff like that. But some of the classes are. It's six courses.
Rap theory, advanced rap techniques, which I think is really dope. Like, I would love to see what that is. Rhyme collegy, which sounds super dope. Mickey Money class.
So I guess Mickey's gonna be teaching about money in the game. Battle rap is a course and then a content creation class. So $2,000, you get all of that.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:23:28
That's perfect. And I love it. So this got me to thinking real quick. J. Ray, okay. On your.
On your way to matriculate through whatever university and you're getting your degree in hippology, hip hop ology or whatever. Who would you want your academic advisor to be? Mine. I'll tell you. Mine. Off the rip. Mine is KRS1. KRS1 is my academic advisor.
Who would you want to be your academic advisor?

Jay Ray
00:23:55
Ooh. So I think I want Queen Latifah to be my academic advisor. She. You know what I'm saying?
She would give me a little bit of that business, and she knows she could. She lean in a little bit, be like, I don't think that's for you. I think you need to move over here and get up into this film.
You know what I'm saying? Like, I can see I would definitely want Queen Latifah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:24:21
And can't you see them critiquing our freestyles, like. Yeah. So I heard your freestyle in class today, and you know that shit was whack, right? Yeah. I expected more out of you.
I expected more out of you, and I think you need to go back to the drawing board. I don't see improvement in my class. You will be on academic suspension.

Jay Ray
00:24:46
Can you imagine? It would be like, they would be critiquing our wordplay and critiquing our metaphors and all types of stuff. Just bad.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:24:59
Rule number one, no biting. No biting. Rule number two.
And of course, you're going to have to talk about contracts and especially if you're in a group and study all the great groups over history. But tonight we are studying great girl groups. And, you know, we've talked about girl groups.
Last year, we spoke about girl groups and how there weren't any.

Jay Ray
00:25:27
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:25:27
But now we've got. We've got Flo, we've got the Black Bettys. We've got. You know, we've got. We're seeing a little increase in some. In some black girl groups coming back.
You know, we got to give a shout out to the greatest of all times, Destiny's Child, tlc, the Supremes, you know, but there's something special about the girl groups of the 90s. There's just. So we're talking about. I already saw a theme. There's a theme of sexual liberation, cheating and infidelity.
And what else were we singing about? And love. I mean, just relationships in general.

Jay Ray
00:26:11
Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:26:12
And I. I really think that those types of things made for classic, classic records from the girl groups of the 90s.
But tonight we're speaking about some specific girl groups that were right there, right there on the precipice of blowing up. They're all over video soul. They're all over mcv. You know, we know their songs. They're bumping all over the radio. But it didn't happen. It didn't.
It didn't go pop like it should have, you know. And so tonight we're talking about. You want to run the whole list. If you want to take them one by one, let's.

Jay Ray
00:26:56
Let's go ahead and run. Let's do them one by one and let y'all weigh in on these. But this is exciting. So.
Okay, so one of the other interesting things, Sir Daniel, as we get into this, the 90s were unique in that we still had duos. Like, there were several duos. And y'all might be like, one duo that we're not talking about is Johnny.
And we're not talking about Johnny because they. They made it right. They kind. They. They. They surpassed a certain threshold. And we have some other stuff around Johnny that we need to talk about.
So they are coming. We have not forgotten Johnn, but, you know, we had these duos. We had. So it's duos and trios tonight. And so I'm excited.
So the first one is an interesting case. So Changing Faces.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:27:52
Mm. Cassandra Lucas and Sharice Rose, Changing Faces out of New York. I just remember Changing faces out the gate. Like, they. They had a very.
They had a very unique poise to their performances. Very. It was a very stripped down look. One piece flowing long gown, form fitting. And then, you know, the very. They're very chantuse, like.
And if singing softly, you're fooling around, Fooling around. And those songs just automatically just took off. Like Fooling around, get up ghetto ut out and stroke you up, stroke you up.

Jay Ray
00:28:43
That was their first single out the gate, you know.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:28:46
Was that okay? Yes, you're right. Stroke you up was first. And.

Jay Ray
00:28:50
And then fooling around came next.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:28:52
Fooling around. Then they made lots of various appearances and rap videos.

Jay Ray
00:28:58
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:28:59
I think one of the most important videos was Biggie's one more chance video. Because if you were anybody in hip hop and R B at that time, you were in that video.

Jay Ray
00:29:11
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:29:11
And Changing Faces was in that video. A lot of the girl groups were in that video.

Jay Ray
00:29:15
Yeah. So, you know, they were kind of an interesting case. So they, of course they sang. Okay. So they got their start.
Apparently they sang background for Sybil, so that was how they met and how they formed. So they formed organically. And they were singing background for Sybil. They at that.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:29:36
Wait, which Sybil?

Jay Ray
00:29:38
Sybil, don't make me over Cybil.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:29:42
So Okay. Okay.

Jay Ray
00:29:43
Yep. Oh, not. Not save. Not Sable.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:29:48
So while she was Sable and Sybil. Yeah. So you're right.

Jay Ray
00:29:54
And so for better or for worse, their career is forever tied to R. Kelly. R. Kelly wrote their biggest hits.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:30:07
And he's singing on them, too.

Jay Ray
00:30:10
He's singing on them, too. And I mean, I still hear Changing Faces on R and B radio. They're staples of R and B radio. But you forget, like, it's so. It's so funny.
I went back and we were doing research for all of these groups, and like, so many of these groups have, like, some sort of connection. They either toured with or did something with R. Kelly because this was kind of his time. And Changing Faces was one of them.
But I think this one's hard. I don't know. Could Changing Faces have. Why didn't they go? I think it was just the changing. From my perspective, it was just the changing of music.
Like, R and B changed so much that hip hop was the big thing. I don't know that there was room. There wasn't a room for a group like Changing Faces. I can't see where they would have fit in the 2000s.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:31:13
I. So I think along those lines, there was that they had great records. They, you know, they sold a lot of records. They went on tours.
I think we were getting into that, like, to your point, we were getting into that, the hip hop era, but we were also getting into, like, tabloid hip hop era. And not for nothing, aside from years later, the R. Kelly controversy, we never heard anything else about Changing Faces outside of the music.

Jay Ray
00:31:48
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:31:49
And so a lot of our. A lot of the people that are superstars, not only do they have the.
The discography and the catalog to support their careers, but they also got a little bit of drama, too.

Jay Ray
00:32:07
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:32:07
And has some type of urban legend. Urban, you know, behind them. You know, we know we love TLC because of the.
Not only whether they had the music, but you got Left Eye burning down houses. You got them, you got them, you got them bankrupt and Right. You know, selling, selling.
Being the top selling female group of all time and being completely broke. We got Supremes, you know, all of their lineup changes and Diana Ross being singled out. There's drama. Destiny's Child, come on.

Jay Ray
00:32:40
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:32:40
I don't even need to speak on that. So Changing Faces, if you. I don't know if you.
I hate to say it this way, but if you, like, put them in a lineup, would you be able to select them out of a lineup of a bunch of girl groups from the 90s. And that's. And that's no shade to them or their music. And they had great songs. But, yeah, I think that might have been part of it.
And it's so funny what you were speaking of earlier about playing their music now. Remember I told you I was. I asked, I said, do you think I could get away with a Changing Faces record at. At my rocksteady gig?
And he was like, what you mean? And J. Ray was like, what are you talking about? I was like, R. Kelly is all over the song, singing the hook. And he was like.
And Jay Red was like, yeah, you're right. But I did find one record that was. That was not produced by R. Kelly that doesn't have any singing by R. Kelly on it.
Matter of fact, it's Keep It Right There that was produced by Devontae Swing of Jodeci. And, you know, that's something. But, yeah, aside from them being completely tied to R. Kelly, Changing Faces is kind of. They kind of squeak by.

Jay Ray
00:33:57
They did.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:33:57
Without any controversy.

Jay Ray
00:34:00
So. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting group. They didn't quite. Even though, to your point, they had. I went.
When I looked at their numbers, even their Last album in 2000 hit number nine on the R and B charts. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't. What was it? Certified. But it landed pretty high.
Like, people were really into Changing Faces, but I think you make a really good point. Putting them in a lineup would have been hard. Now, this next duo started as a trio and I think. Sir Daniel, we have to show love to the.
The Girls album was hot.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:34:44
Let me do this real quick because it's right there. So the. We're talking about the girls, the G, Y, R, L, Z. These girls. And I've spoken about them before. You know, they've got.
They've got a very long standing history in music. They are part of the uptown MCA legacy. Although they were never on mca, they're on Capitol Records.

Jay Ray
00:35:15
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:35:16
But they were part of the Uptown legacy because they started out as writers and background singers for. I'll Be Sure.

Jay Ray
00:35:25
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:35:25
So in Al B. Shore's classic videos, you will see the Terry, Monica and Tara singing. Singing background and doing this number right here behind Al Shore.
That's them. So they. This came out in 80.

Jay Ray
00:35:41
89. Is that 89?

DJ Sir Daniel
00:35:44
Yeah. And the album came out 88, 89. And they had like marginal hits as a trio. And I love the album, you know, because that was my time period.
I love them and I love the album. But they, like I said, continued writing in the industry. Monica Payne is an industry insider to this day.

Jay Ray
00:36:07
Absolutely.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:36:08
And at one, at one point dated too short, which I found very hilarious, very fascinating. But they were also writers like I said and wrote a lot of hits for like Father mc, anybody you can think of.
They wrote a lot of hits for soul, for real, all of that stuff. But Terry and Monica, who are Terry? Terry on the end and Monica Payne formed a duo Terry and Monica in the the mid-90s. Like 93, 94.

Jay Ray
00:36:43
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:36:43
And not for nothing, dope ass music.

Jay Ray
00:36:46
Dope music like Terry and Monica. There was a mystique around them because they were so legendary in kind of the uptown camp. Like you were familiar.
For those of us that were familiar with the girls. Go play that girls record today. Love Me or Leave Me Alone is a dope record. Like it's new Jack Swing history.
So the same producer for Albie Shore's debut produced that record too.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:37:17
Kyle West.

Jay Ray
00:37:18
Kyle West Banger. Go Go Play It. So but anyway they rebranded as Terry and Monica.
Tara was still part of the mix like she was still doing backgrounds and stuff like that. But in fact she co wrote with them. Really Terry and Monica is really the girls. But they rebranded for whatever reason to Terry and Monica.
Because I'm looking at the writing credits. Tara co wrote every song with them. Right. But there was a mystique around them and so I remember when the video for uh huh came out.
So they signed to Epic Records. Horace Brown was part of. Horace Brown was on the record. Just had a bunch of folks on the record part. But the, the. The video for huh.
Black and White, this hard funk groove under it. It was doing everything that you a 93 song. It ways you bob your head and you was kind of doing that and everybody was in the rec in the video.
So you had like a Flex Alexander. All the cool kids were in the video Groove Theory.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:38:34
All the cool kids like you said.

Jay Ray
00:38:36
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:38:36
So there was this. So this is what Jay Ray is talking about. This look right here. So they completely rebranded and the Kangos made a return in 94. Remember that?

Jay Ray
00:38:46
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:38:46
And they had to be turned to the back. And so a lot of the sisters were wearing these two these floor length tube dresses and were rocking pumas with it.
So that was very much you know a rebrand for them. It was hip hop but it was still very boho she cheek and you know they did a. A really good job of rebranding themselves. And like J.
Ray said, the song for those of us that knew them were like you. We were Rocking with that stuff, but it just didn't take it to that next level.

Jay Ray
00:39:22
But I think it goes back to that. I think we'll probably find a thread through all of these groups. I think you need the perfect storm of things to happen to make something pop.
There wasn't a huge controversy. There wasn't. There was nothing controversial about Terry and Monica, you know what I'm saying?
They were two black women who were singing and writing good songs with super solid production behind them. So I'm looking at the production on this record really quick. So Bryce from Groove Theory. Of course, Bryce is also behind me right there.
Because Bryce was part of Mantronics. He joined Mantronics. So that was. In fact, this is not long before he would have produced this. This is like 88 right here.
So you got Bryce on the joint, like I said, you got Horace Brown on the joint. You got. So you have these people that are percolating.
I just think it was one of those situations, again, where you need the right machine, you need the right kind of buzz to kind of cross over. Because at that time, it was about crossing over.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:40:39
Definitely. And I also think there was this loyalty to sounding underground and staying underground. That was. There was that.
Because this was kind of like in the backpacker era of hip hop, right? And so, like you said, all the production, if you listen to it, it could easily be thrown into a set of, like, backpacker music. It had the.
The boom bat movement of hip hop, and it had those boom bat beats. And so there was this, like, let's stay true to that sound. And you're right, that didn't have, like, a universal sound.
Whereas, you know, at the time, like, a Brandy was blowing up and crossing over, and because she had more of a girly appeal. They weren't girly girls. They weren't. When I say girls, they weren't like, young girls. They were. They were grown. Yeah, they were grown.
So they couldn't play into that. That. That demographic that, say a Brandy and a Monica and a TLC could play, too. So they had to lean on other strengths.
And that's probably why it didn't take them. I don't know. Yeah, we listen. These are. These aren't. This is not nothing scientific. There's no scientific research to this. This is.
We're really pontificating as fans, as people that grew up listening to this music and seeing it in real time and just thinking, you know, like, what was it? I know y'all thought it was dope, just the same way we thought it was dope, but you don't know why they didn't take it further.
And now this next group, though, for all intents and purposes, might be the most successful in this bunch. For the simple fact, if your music is being sampled today, then you're pretty much.
And you wrote on the album, on the record, you pretty much got it going on.

Jay Ray
00:42:35
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:42:35
And Brownstone were those girls. We've got the. The Nikki Gilbert Mass Choir. Charmaine Maxwell. Rest in Peace to Charmaine, Monica, Mimi, Dobie. They were the.
The original members of Brownstone. But of course along the line you had Keena join Brownstone as well. But Brownstone out the gate. First of all, they were signed to MJJ Epic.
So, you know, there was the big.

Jay Ray
00:43:04
Screen of Michael Jackson behind them.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:43:07
If Michael Jackson is co signing this, then it was like, oh, oh, then they must be the real deal. And then on top of that, they could really sing.

Jay Ray
00:43:14
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:43:15
I mean, even on the album cover, J Ray and I were laughing about this before we came on. On the album cover, they're literally. Their heads are thrown back and you don't see anything but teeth.

Jay Ray
00:43:27
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:43:27
They're like. You could tell that they were singing screaming bloody murder on every single track.
What award show was that that they were on and they were like hollering to the.

Jay Ray
00:43:39
They came out screen. It was either Soul Train. It was probably the Soul Train Awards. But they literally started with.
It was for Grapevine and they were standing in that three pack singing to the gods out the gate.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:44:00
And you know, Grapevine starts up there. Grapevine is a very. Is a high octave song already. It's up there. And they are literally singing for the people in the nosebleed seats.
But they came from that school. It's like they came from that school of. You had to people that they were unable to be front row.
They needed to feel like they were still a part of the show. So they came from that school where you had to sing for Bloody Murder back then.

Jay Ray
00:44:27
So, you know, and I think the other interesting thing about this, about them, especially if you look at their. Their first two hits, Dave Jam hall was kind of an engine as well beyond behind that. Right. So you have if youf Love Me, which was out the gate crazy.
You have Grapevine once again out the gate crazy. And that's really all you had. Oh, I can't tell you why they remade. I can't tell you why I forgot about that.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:45:04
That remake that doesn't give. That remake does not get the love that it should. And that if anybody touched an Eagle song. Yep, they touched it, and they made it their own.
We don't talk enough about how they made. I can't tell you why. Their own song. And that song is beautiful. It's. It's R and B, but sung by the Eagles, so they were able to.
I can't go on more about that song, but it was just really dope. But you were saying, J. Ray.

Jay Ray
00:45:32
I'm sorry. No, no, you're good. You know, they did get a second album on mjj.
Um, not as well received as their first record, but that first single, five Miles to Empty, and Mark just jumped in the chat. That is my favorite brownstone song. So by that time, Keena Cosper had joined. And let me tell you something about Ms. Keena Keena's solo record. Go.
If you can find it, get it. Okay. Girl from the Gutter, Goals from.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:46:10
Sidebar. There's like a drum and bass version of Girl from the Gutter act that I can't find anywhere.
When I tell you that thing goes so hard and she fit right in. She's another one that can unhinge your jaw.

Jay Ray
00:46:22
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:46:23
And just pull her head back and just scream. I mean, a voice out of nowhere just comes all the way up. It's just a lot of very controlled but very impactful singing.

Jay Ray
00:46:35
Absolutely. And Mark said it best. He was like. Their voices are still reverberating from that performance of Grapevine to this day. It's true.
And so the kind of answer to Grapevine was Five Miles to Empty, where it was a very similar kind of sound. The Nikki Gilbert Mass Choir, for all intents and purposes.
And, I mean, I think the reason why they didn't go further, I think two things, I mean, definitely line up. There were some things changes. There's some things going on behind the scenes.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:47:09
Some throat issues for some members, you.

Jay Ray
00:47:12
Know, Throat issues, yes. Challenges that I think made it difficult for them to continue.
They probably could have gone way further had some of the other drama stuff not happened, potentially.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:47:30
And I'm wondering if they also fell victim to the. To the policing of bodies at that time. You know, they're all. They're black girls, Nikki Gilbert.
All of them are ranging different sizes and if you notice, on the album covers.
So, yeah, Nikki starts off one size, but if by the time we got to that second and third album, they were doing things to, like, camouflage their bodies. So there's that. Who knows? There's a. A plethora of stuff that was happening.
I know they continue to write that's always a plus continuing, you know, especially if you're a writer and you go on to do that and. But we didn't hear any mess. You know what? Okay, so here's the common thread there.
The early 90s was that time where, where PR, A and R kept a tight reign on their artists. So you didn't hear any mess unless you were like a huge, a huge A list celebrity.
So like everybody kept a tight reign probably on those camps of singers and mostly singers and kept a tight rein on them.
So that's why you didn't hear a lot of mess or you didn't hear about them, about people's personalities clashing and people being hearts and difficult to work with until 15 years later when they join a reality TV show and you find out that they're Burzak. You know, then you find, oh, you're crazy. That's probably why that group didn't last long. You're. You, you, you're. You know, your screws ain't tight.
Okay, I see, I see why maybe the group didn't line up. I'm not saying that's what happened.
But right now in the reality TV era, we get to see, you know, R B divas, we get to see an encore where all these group members get to be on TV and now we get to see their real personalities. Whereas back then everything was control. Publicists had control over everything, that image.

Jay Ray
00:49:37
Everything, you know, And I think you're absolutely right. Now this next group, they hold a special place in my heart, my little heart. This is probably our. This might be.
No, we got one of two of our least well known groups. I think, I think so. But Nothing Nice was hot to me. Like Nothing nice not nice came of age. They're out of Sacramento, California.
They formed organically.
Apparently they were a five piece band called Attitude that when members left, they kind of pared down to a trio and then they called themselves Nothing Nice. But the Nut Nice sound was born out of tlc, was born out of Xscape. Like their look was so escape at the very beginning.
Like you could see where the sound influences from the producers, even though they were on the west coast, they were clearly pulling influences from the east coast and from Atlanta. Yes, Trey, Trey done said what Froggy Style Wentz.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:50:57
My absolute favorite song. It was, it was maybe about the second single in that really, I think put them on the map because by that time they put them in the matching.
It's like jockey. Yeah, the jockey. The jockey costumes with the tights and The. And the Boots. And I think they were influenced a lot by the whole Adina Howard freak.
By that time, Freak Like Me was an anthem. And yet again, you know this. We're in this whole sexual liberation of the 90s for these R B girl groups.
And they didn't have any problem singing I'm down for Whatever and then going into a Froggy Style.

Jay Ray
00:51:38
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:51:38
And Froggy Style had the Atomic. Atomic Dog sample. So it was going to go hard anyway.

Jay Ray
00:51:44
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:51:44
So you're absolutely right. But they still didn't manage to.

Jay Ray
00:51:48
They didn't manage it. And they have a very interesting trajectory. Right. So down for Whatever. I don't even remember the first release of the album.
Apparently down for Whatever. I remember the second version, so the 95 one. Although I knew the group because In My Nature was my joint.
So I was telling Sir Daniel before we got on, I was doing research, you know, get ready for this show. And I had heard In My Nature in so long. And so I played it and I immediately started singing.
Sitting back, think about what to do Boy, I think about calling you Ooh, it's in my nature. I was like, that was my show.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:52:37
Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing how those lyrics are locked back there? And it's like. It just takes a beat and you're like, oh, I remember that.
And you start singing more.

Jay Ray
00:52:45
Started singing it. So that was 93. Right. So you get 93 in my nature. 94. They dropped down for whatever and then they re released the record in 95.
So now we get all the things. We get Froggy Style. We get. Oh, what's the joint that I loved? Oh, shoot. It's on that record. Oh, it's going to come to me.
But there was another joint on that record with Froggy Style that I go up for and I need to find it.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:53:25
So while you're doing that, I just had an epiphany. Yes, Nothing Nice was on Jive Records.

Jay Ray
00:53:35
Yes, they were.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:53:37
Who else was on Jive RCA at the time? There was a singing trio out of the Bronx.

Jay Ray
00:53:44
Who else was on there?

DJ Sir Daniel
00:53:47
The ran of the 90s. SSW.

Jay Ray
00:53:53
Oh, they were. Wait a minute. No, they were on rca, weren't they? That's a. Oh, that was a subsidiary. It was Jive rca.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:54:06
There's, you know, there could have been some kind of, I don't know, maybe some type of favoritism that maybe there wasn't a push as much as the other groups got. But, I mean, we've got two girl groups singing, you Know about the same kind of subject matters, but they similar styles.
Black girls, they're, you know, they're really vying for everybody's attention and everybody's money and everybody spins.

Jay Ray
00:54:34
Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:54:35
So I don't know. And by that. So SWV came out in 91, 92.

Jay Ray
00:54:41
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:54:42
And here we have nothing nice coming out in the shadow of swv. And maybe Jive thought, okay, well we can probably do the same thing with them as we did with swv. And it just maybe didn't. Didn't pop.
Yeah, the same way.

Jay Ray
00:54:55
I think that, I think that could absolutely be true because, you know, we only got the one record from them, by the way. And the joint is. You ain't got a lot of Kick it. That's my joy. You ain't got a lot.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:55:08
That's so West Coast. That's so West Coast.

Jay Ray
00:55:10
So that's also interesting. I think by the time that the re release happens, we get to your point, we get kind of the rebrand to like the west coast look and sound and. Yeah.
It could be just simply one of those things where it just didn't happen, like.
Cause you figure from 93 to 96 they went through a lot of style evolution and trying things to see what sticks and none of it ever really became this huge thing. They hit their, their, their. They topped out at number four, number 34 on the R B charts. So it's like. I don't know, you know?

DJ Sir Daniel
00:56:04
Yeah, it's. It's one of those songs. It's one of those groups that if, you know, you know.

Jay Ray
00:56:10
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:56:11
You know, like if you knew, if you were video soul junkies, like we were coming up, then you absolutely know who nothing nice is was.

Jay Ray
00:56:22
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:56:23
But to the, to the, to the masses, they just did not get that kind of love. So. And then we move on to another. So here's the con.
So I, I have to admit, when this next group came out, I didn't automatically shine towards them because I was a, A Terry, Monica and Tara fan.

Jay Ray
00:56:47
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:56:48
Down there was the girls.

Jay Ray
00:56:51
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:56:51
But then Motown presents the Good Girls.

Jay Ray
00:56:55
Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:56:55
And I mean they, the, the marketing, you already knew what kind of what it was with them. They were marketed as the Good Girls. They wore like Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. You know, the skirts were super high.
But it was still, you know, there was still kind of goody two shoes about it. And I just really think that they went for that. They went hard for that light skinned long hair look.

Jay Ray
00:57:20
They did.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:57:22
I jokingly said that all of their promos and Their videos look like they were some AKA probates. You know, if you look back on their pictures, they. It's giving green and. And pink all day long and pearls. But.
Yeah, but the Good Girls, for all intents and purposes, they. They made their mark. You know, I think love is like itching in my heart.

Jay Ray
00:57:46
They.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:57:47
If it makes sense, they're on Motown. Why not use a legacy song from the Motown archives to kind of you launch your career?

Jay Ray
00:57:55
Yeah, the Good Girls are an interesting case. Everything that you said is absolutely right. They. I remember the two. This was an interesting time, too. Cause you would find this a lot with records.
The two singles were the songs that I remembered the most from that first album. So your Sweetness, which is a bop, was their first song. And then Love is like an itching in my heart was the second joint.
But I really took to them for their second album. So I think the second single from the second album was It Must be Love, One of my favorite songs of the 90s.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:58:37
Fantastic song. Queen Latifah sampled it on her Black Ring album.

Jay Ray
00:58:42
Absolutely just a really dope song. And there was another joint from that record, so the Just Call Me album, which came out in 92, that I really was into, called Since I fell for your.
If y'all can find that joint. That joint is hot. From the Good Girls. But so what's interesting about them, too, is their producer for their big. Their. Their big single.
So your sweetness, Love is like an itching in my heart. I think he did It Must be love too was this brother by the name of L A J. And L A J was kind of a very prolific producer at that time.
So he was doing a lot of the Motown stuff then. So he did MC Troubles, I'm gonna make you mine, which featured the good.

DJ Sir Daniel
00:59:31
I want to make you mine. Yep.

Jay Ray
00:59:33
And was doing some other stuff in. In kind of that vein. But he's also done a lot of.
He also did some work with the Far side on their first album and actually spent some time with them on tour. So, you know, I think it. There was another. They got two records. I mean, 92 was kind of their last album.
When you listen to Just Call Me, because I did kind of skim through it, it sounds very 92, right? Yeah, it sounds very of its time. And we also. By the time Just Call me came out, we were post TLC at that point. You know what I'm saying?
Everything was changing, you know what I'm saying? And. And their style of sweet R and B singing was not what People were going for it was either your in vogue or your tlc.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:00:30
And let's face it, their, their voices weren't the most powerful.

Jay Ray
01:00:35
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:00:36
They didn't, they didn't really knock you over the head vocally.
So if you weren't shocking us with your looks and a whole new, a whole different style or you weren't shocking us with the vocals, then you kind of got like J. Ray said, lost in the sauce. So they had a good run, you know.
Shout out to demonic Demonica Santiago, Joyce Tolbert and Shereen Crutchfield, the good girls. Shout out to them now the on the way.
On the other side of the spectrum, the color spectrum, which I thought was a very, very interesting time, was Black Girl.

Jay Ray
01:01:13
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:01:13
And Black Girl got my attention off the back. There were three dark skinned sisters and they didn't have the long flowy. They didn't have the 40 inches down to the butt.

Jay Ray
01:01:27
Nope.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:01:27
They went for a, a classical style with the, with the, the, the finger waves, the Josephine Baker fingerways. And then they. I think I can't even remember what the very first song was that they came out with.

Jay Ray
01:01:42
Crazy was their first song.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:01:45
Crazy. And it was a very new Jack swing very much. But then I. But then they made the anthemic 90s song too.

Jay Ray
01:01:54
90S Girl was the one. So I didn't, I didn't real. So I had to really kind of dig of all of these groups.
Well, the Good Girls and Black Girl I think were the hardest to find stuff on. But here's what we knew. I don't know if you knew this her Daniel. Black Girls, Atlanta based.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:02:17
I did know that. Yeah.

Jay Ray
01:02:18
Yeah. So they're Atlanta based, apparently organically formed because they were actually trying to kind of reform in 2017.
But so in the wake, I'm assuming in the wake of LaFace, these two white men started a label that was Atlanta based called Casper Records. And they had a bunch of group. It was, if you look at the groups, like Caper. Capers. Yeah, I said Caper. I said Casper. My bad. So Caper Records.
Thank you. So they started K for records and one of the groups that was signed was Black Girl.
And you know, I think this label was basically trying to check all the black, the R and B boxes of the of the time. So they had like a kid group, they had like a girl group, they had like a rap group, you know what I'm saying? And all of these things.
But black girl, 90s girl was a. Even though it came out in like 94. So we're like four. We're like four years in at that point. But it hit a mark.
It was a dope jam, and it was anthemic for black women.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:03:35
Absolutely. And I can't help but notice I'm looking at this. At this. At the 12 inch. They're on the RCA imprint as well.

Jay Ray
01:03:46
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:03:47
Again. So I don't know all the girls, like all you girls that were on RCA at the time, you had SWV to contend with. And SWV was not budging.

Jay Ray
01:03:59
They were at the top.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:04:02
I mean, up until about 99. Right.

Jay Ray
01:04:05
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:04:06
So if you were on that label, SWV was probably the priority. So.

Jay Ray
01:04:13
Oh, Sir Daniel subsidiary.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:04:15
I think I may have cracked the code. It's the RCA code for a lot of these girls. If you want an RCA subsidiary imprint, you may not have gotten the print.
The push that you were hoping for because SWV was running things at the time.

Jay Ray
01:04:30
You actually may have also answered.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:04:32
It's a theory.

Jay Ray
01:04:33
You may have also answered the brownstone thing because, you know, they were under Sony and did that. MJJ was kind of in there. Destiny's Child was Mariah Carey. You have these. You have these staple groups.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:04:48
Do you see the connections, though? So SWV got a sample cleared by Michael Jackson himself for Human Nature. So there's. There's a. There's some overlapping here.
We should probably be playing the X Files theme music.

Jay Ray
01:05:05
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:05:05
Background. There's some things going on back here. And, you know, and Nikki Gilbert was probably writing for other people at the time. Stuff was happening.

Jay Ray
01:05:16
Stuff was happening.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:05:17
Stuff was happening.

Jay Ray
01:05:19
But yeah, black girl, 90s girl was certainly a thing. So they actually. So they had four singles. I don't know. I gotta go back and listen to let's do it Again. I don't know that I know that song. Crazy.
I know. But they charted on the R B charts with all of their singles. That's actually an accomplishment. So crazy. Hit number 37. 90 90s girl hit number 13.
Where did we go wrong? Hit number 39. And let's do it again hit number 25. They went gold with their record. So their record was not a flop. But we only got the one album.
Treat you right. They were actually nominated for a Billboard. They were nominated for three Billboard Music Awards. Artist of the Year, R and B Artist of the year.
90s Girl was nominated for two awards, and they were nominated for two Soul Train awards and they won a Vibe magazine award for best look. So they weren't a fluke.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:06:20
So. But I think. I think you. You answered it right There you had so much support. You had five magazine whose. Whose main purpose was pushing black culture.
Especially if you. Especially black women. When you have Danielle Smith at the helm. Right.
You have Soul Train, which was still in circulation and still in syndication on television. You have Video Soul, you have all these different outlets and you have black radio.

Jay Ray
01:06:52
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:06:53
That was still pushing artists like A black Girl.
So yes, they were able to chart, they were able to sell gold records because they had all these platforms that eventually one by one kind of phased out. You know, you had like a. I don't know if you guys in your prospective cities, if you had an event call For Sisters Only.
In Atlanta, they had an event called For Sisters Only. I'm sure they had it in D.C. because I think it started in D.C.
but when you have events like that, you have people like Black Girl, you had your Tanya Blunts.
You have people who we knew of in the 90s and who had hits on the radio, but they had those platforms to perform at and all in all the major black cities in the country. So. Yes, and I think that might be the difference now is that those things phased out. Yeah, those platforms phased out.
So therefore we no longer have anybody like pushing the nostalgia behind these particular artists anymore.
Unless you got sampled and you're sample by a rap artist and it goes crazy, or you're linked to a, you know, an alleged pedophile and a convicted pedophile.

Jay Ray
01:08:11
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:08:12
And unless you are.
You have those things going for you, you have some type of notoriety like that, then you know you're not going to have that kind of juice behind you like we did back in the 90s.

Jay Ray
01:08:30
Y'all know who the one more is. Jade was a thing.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:08:39
They had y'all stomping like y'all were in fraternities. Yeah, the whole. The whole hoochie, the whole cut off shorts with the combat boots. That was a thing that became a thing, you know.
Don't Walk Away is the eternal Summer Jam. There's no getting that song screams summer Jam. You know, it's summertime, Springtime. When that comes out, when that people play that.

Jay Ray
01:09:04
Absolutely. So Jade to me had so much potential. Like, I feel like they. Okay, so they're the one group on this list that was put together.
So they were an assembled group. They had. So their first album, Jade to the Max, their first single, I Wanna Love youe was part of the class act soundtrack.
That's how we first kind of got to know them. That was their first single out the gate. But it was that second Single. It was Don't Walk Away that literally lit. Lit everything up.
It had everything you wanted. It had the perfect loop. It had that hard. That hard kick drum. It was so dope that that's the foundation that Q Tip used for a war tour. So he was like.
It was Jade's Don't Walk Away that inspired the way he built the beat for Award Tour. He wanted it to sound to have the same rumble that Don't Walk Away had. And so if you listen to Award Tour, it will remind you of Don't Walk Away. But.
And then they did. One woman looking for Mr. Do Right. They did. And I forgot about this until I researched this. They did the BET Unplugged thing.
I can't remember what it was called.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:10:34
They sure did. Yeah.

Jay Ray
01:10:36
And they released it. BET's listening party is what it was called. And I think they may have been one of maybe two groups that did that. There wasn't a lot of them.
Them, but so they sang live because, you know, back then, we were still fresh out of Milli Vanilli. People had to prove they could sing. And they did that. And there was it. Things kind of died down for a bit.
But then we get Mind, Body and song, you know, Five, four, three, two. Yo, Time is Up.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:11:11
Drama's Up.

Jay Ray
01:11:14
Which was an interesting first single.
I actually think their second single would have been the better first single every day of the week, I think would have been the better out the Gate song.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:11:24
And that was a bop.

Jay Ray
01:11:25
That was a bop every day of the week. Yeah. Cause that actually kind of saved that record. I liked 5432 yo, time is up. I thought that was dope.
Mark Morales did that joint shout out to, you know, Mark Morales. Wow. We lost him in 2021. Wow. Prince Markey D. Prince Marky D. And so he did that joint. But it was every day of the week from that album that popped off.
And there were other joints. I still have that. I still have Mind, Body and Song. There was like, this is a solid album. It's. You can listen to it today and you. It's enjoyable.
But I think the thing for this group was they didn't get along. They. They didn't get along. They were assembled.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:12:18
Yeah. You schooled me on this. I was like, oh. Oh. So that's what was going on back there.

Jay Ray
01:12:23
Yeah. There's a lot of stories, but. Yeah. So even coming out of the first record, I think that's when the first cracks started to appear for them.
And, you know, they made it.
God Bless them, they made it to a second album and you know, had this record done what the label wanted it to do, we probably would have got more Jade albums, you know what I'm saying, out of it. But. But you know, I don't. And the other thing that I believe happened here, from what I've read, is they also weren't getting paid.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:13:05
You know, I think that's a common theme.

Jay Ray
01:13:08
Exactly right. They weren't getting paid. They like, when am I gonna get a check? And they like, you gotta recoup all of this.
You gotta recoup all of this hair and all of these outfits.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:13:19
Tear makeup. But I will say this for Jade. Out of all the groups that we listed tonight, I think if you.
Jade would probably, if you put them on stage right now, they would probably have the longer set list. Because I think catalog wise they had the. They were highly. Had the longer set list. Brownstone. Brownstone is a close second.
I think they might be neck and neck actually.
Like, if you put them on like an old school tour, they could definitely be like that really strong middle act that keeps this, that keeps the show flowing. So shout out to Jade, you know, and everything that they were. Now, you know what else I just, I just thought about while we were discussing this.
Another commonality is all of these ladies participated in the Panther soundtrack. Freedom Freedom. Freedom soundtrack that they all participate. Participated in that soundtrack in the R B version of Freedom.

Jay Ray
01:14:22
Freedom was written by Ms. Joy Gillum. We gotta do a Joy show.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:14:27
She blueprint. Listen, Joy is still out here doing things and making a. And making a comeback.

Jay Ray
01:14:38
Yeah.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:14:39
And I'm here for it.

Jay Ray
01:14:42
So one of the things we are going to do as we wrap our show is Sir Daniel and I, I wanted to share with y'all our favorite girl groups of all time. So we invite you to list yours as well in the chat. I have three and Sir Daniel has three. Who want to go. You want to go first, Sir Daniel?

DJ Sir Daniel
01:15:07
No, you can take it first.

Jay Ray
01:15:08
Okay, so I'mma run down my three and I'm going to tell you why I picked these three as a high level at the end. So my number three favorite girl group is in vogue. In vogue. Them girls can sing.
Like even though they were assembled, that was the most perfect assembly of voices. And that, that initial four pack shout.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:15:37
Out to Foster and McElroy. They did that.

Jay Ray
01:15:40
They did that. Those women could sing. They're amazing. My third favorite girl group of all time, number two, the Pointer Sisters. This.
We don't talked about them on the last show we go talk about them again. These women are the epitome of diversity and tenacity. They went through so many lineup changes. All sisters. Right.
It was just a revolving door of sisters. Right. But they produced some of the most timeless music of my childhood. And I am. They're one of my favorites.
And my number one favorite is the Supremes. These are the Goats, the blueprint. They the blueprint. Like, all of these groups are following what Florence, Mary and Diana were doing. And yeah.
So they are my number one girl group of all time because they. The Goats.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:16:40
Absolutely. I love your list. We have some similarities.
So my number three, and the only reason they're number three is because when y'all see who number one is, you. You absolutely understand, because I always go hard for these, for those three. But anyway, my number three is the Pointer Sisters.
I echo everything that J. Ray said about them being just quintessential musicians. Like, their voices are truly instruments.
You're talking about groups that spanned at least four decades of music. And we're talking jazz, Broadway numbers, country music, R and B, R, rock, you name it. The Pointer Sisters embodied everything. And they just seen.
You know, there's a special magic, there's a special continuity that girl groups who happen to be related share. They share a vocal. That vocal thing, that vocal core thing that family groups share. You hear it with the Jacksons, you hear it with the Braxtons.

Jay Ray
01:17:49
You hear.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:17:49
You heard it with point assistance. There's a magic in their voices combining. So. And then they. Then they had. They would look flawless too, in all their joints.
So that's why the point of Sisters are my number three, number two, sswuv. Swv. I mean, come on. They came around. Think about when you were in about 11th grade.
Whatever group had the impact on you, I'm pretty certain they stay with you until now. And SWV is that for me, SWV like provided the soundtrack to my prom. They provided the soundtrack to me riding around in the.
In my first car with my friends and doing hood rat stuff. And they. They ran the 90s style wise. They were on every magazine cover. Every black woman who was a.
A black girl in the 90s can pay homage to SWV and hype here and black hair magazines for whatever happened to your edges at that time. SWV was responsible for. You all were mocking the. Mocking the styles. And they look great. The nails, everything. And just dope ass music. The marriage.
We gotta think, Mary.

Jay Ray
01:19:09
Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:19:09
For sure. That the marriage between hip hop and R and B can happen. And SWV Took that and they ran with it. They.
Their music is timeless and, and it goes hard for like, for the hip hop community as well. And. Oh, go ahead real quick.

Jay Ray
01:19:24
Something real quick with SWV too, that I absolutely love is they're still working together.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:19:30
Still working together.

Jay Ray
01:19:32
They.
I saw a post from Coco the other day that made me laugh because they were performing apparently somewhere and they set off this huge, like explosion of stuff. And she was like, Lily grabbed my hand and I grabbed Taj.
And we couldn't say, we couldn't sing the high note of week because they didn't tell us that they were going to do this big explosion. But what was so funny was like, these are sisters.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:20:01
Sisters with voices. Yes, I see what you did there, J.

Jay Ray
01:20:05
Right.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:20:06
So I think it goes without saying who my number one girl group is of all time. You've heard me singing their praises. You've seen my Instagram posts about them.
I mean, I think I have a post of a picture of them that I remember from my Word up magazines. Salt and Pepper, Cheryl, Sandy and Dede.

Jay Ray
01:20:27
Yes.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:20:27
Are my number one girl group because I think they just had the most impact on me as far as having just the, the recipe, all the right stuff. The music was dope, well put together and well produced. They looked dope. They, they had that accessible yet fly around the way girl chic about them.
They looked relatable, but they also look desirable. They had all of that going for them and then they were just really dope at what they did.
Like, music wise, they were very, they're very competent musicians and rappers, so. And then they kicked down a lot of doors. They were the first female MCs to go platinum. First ones to get.
The first group, female MC group to get a Grammy. There's not in there. And when you look back on it, there's not a lot of successful female rap groups. We've got Salt and pepper, we got J.J.
fab, we've got, you know, you have a few, you got the trims, your finesses and quizzes, but none of them ever went to the heights of salt and Pepper. And most recently they earned their Hollywood Walk of Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. So that's my countdown.
Those are my 3 all time favorite girl groups of all time. So, you know, we love a list over here at Q Points. So. And I love that you guys are sharing your list with us.
Trey, Trey loves TLC, Destiny's Child on the skate, Mark McFerson loves the emotions and SWV and in vogue, you know, W loves in vogue and Jan. So this is a. A timely topic for. For all times, girl. I don't know what it is about the magic of women getting together in.
In the name of music, but there is undeniably a magic that they all share when it gets. When they come together.

Jay Ray
01:22:28
Y'all, thank you so much for, like, hanging out with us tonight. This is a meaty conversation. Like, we ended up. And y'all stayed with us for almost an hour and a half, yo, so.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:22:38
And you know, we've been running our mouths on here, so thank you. Thank you so much. J. Ray, I gotta say this.
While we were in the middle of the show, it came across that unfortunately, Lisa Marie Presley has passed away at the age of 54. Wow. Yeah. I. Earlier I saw that she had been rushed to the hospital for poss. For possibly cardiac arrest, but she's apparently passed away.
And she was just at the Golden Globes. Just at the Golden Globes. And I know that we've had. We've had our conversations about Elvis Presley on this show.

Jay Ray
01:23:14
More to come.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:23:15
And I know. More to come, you know, and not for nothing, Elvis Presley, of course, is an icon. Is iconic.

Jay Ray
01:23:24
He is.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:23:24
And Lisa married Michael Jackson, which created their own kind of piece of history. So sad to say, Lisa Marie Presley dead at the age of 54. And that's young. That's very young.

Jay Ray
01:23:40
Definitely sending our love to Mrs. Presley.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:23:44
I'm sure this is like, wow, your mom outlived you.

Jay Ray
01:23:49
Yep.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:23:50
Think about that. Wow.

Jay Ray
01:23:51
Wow. Definitely sending love there. Thank you all. Thank you all.
Thank you just Q Points crew for rocking with us and hanging out with us and doing all the things. So once again, if you are an Insiders Max member, we do have Insiders Max members that are on this broadcast.
You can hear DJ Sir Daniel's dope mix, he called it. What was it? Ooh, Ooh.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:24:20
The ooh mix. Yes. Because, you know, because I don't do oohs and ahs.

Jay Ray
01:24:29
Please be sure if you are interested in becoming an Insiders Max member so you can get that as well as some other dope stuff, you can go ahead and join on our website. Please be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts as well as Spotify and make sure you tune in.
If you're not following DJ Sir Daniel on mixcloud, you definitely need to be following him over there because he be just killing it with the sugar honey on the rocks over there and you can get your music fix. This has been a super dope show, Sir Daniel.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:25:05
Absolutely thank you so much, J Ray, for holding it down as usual. But what do I always say, Jay Ray? In this life, you have a choice. You can either pick up the needle or you can let the record play.
I am DJ Sir Daniel.

Jay Ray
01:25:18
And my name is J Ray, y'all.

DJ Sir Daniel
01:25:20
This has been Q Points. We'll see you on the next go round. Peace.

Jay Ray
01:25:24
Peace.