jawnita

Destiny Fulfilled came out in ‘06 and Destiny’s Child was over, TLC was getting “old,” people were feeling Pussycat Dolls / Danity Kane but they were more pop, and there was an opening for a good R&B girl group. Or at least a bunch of major labels thought there was. RichGirl and Electrik Red were essentially producer creations (the latter came together cause Rich Harrison recruited and put them together, behind the scenes—the former had kind of known each other but wouldn’t have dropped an album if it hadn’t been for the Dream writing all of it). Bella, too, was kind of a label creation. Cherish are all sisters and kind of had a family singing situation before they got signed, so. All these majors were so ambitious and eager, but it was also around the time they were really feeling scarred by new media and scrambling for anything to make a buck while still operating on this weird old model of being So Essential to Music Existing. Glad they were wrong, but still. I remember after my Electrik Red feature came out and being so furious because Def Jam did virtually zero promotion on them, so what remains a fantastic, actually classic album is still incredibly slept on. And yeah RichGirl kept getting pushed back into oblivion, Bella most certainly doesn’t exist anymore. I’m sure there were more, but those were my favorites. Anyway, it’s a really sad case of major labels scooping up acts and trying to get a single to stick, with no intention of developing them if it doesn’t work, even if they have a super-producer behind them. And look at what happened to The-Dream, even! He got fucked essentially! I still don’t understand why people want to sign to majors. It’s a grind the other way, but at least if you fail you’ll still have your dignity and, possibly more importantly, your publishing rights.