September 01, 2006 @ 12:26 pm

Danity Kane: The Return of Girl Power

by: Clay Cane

The girls of Danity Kane (see slideshow) are prepared to revitalize girl power on their self-titled debut album that hit stores last week Tuesday, August 22nd. This girl group is much different than the Destiny’s Child, The Spice Girls, or the TLC type groups we have known from the past. These women are multi-cultural, from all walks of life, mixing their souls, passions and inspirations in one tour de force of lyrics, vocals and dance. And with the help of producers like Rodney Jerkins, Timbaland and of course Diddy, the album is destined for the kind of success that new artists can only daydream of. Their latest single “Showstopper” is already storming pop and R&B radio and with the season finale of Making the Band airing on MTV, fans got a taste of the new album. Fresh off completing this season Aubrey, D. Woods, Dawn, Shannon and Aundrea sat down for a one-on-one interview with Vibe.com to discuss the trials of reality television, the picky world of R&B and their new album. VIBE.com: With your debut, self-titled album coming out August 22nd what is your audience going to learn about the five of you that they didn’t learn on the show? D. Woods: Well, definitely they’re going to hear a lot more of our voices, abilities and talents -- because with a thirty-minute television episode you can’t put a whole lot in there. They’re building a story; they’re getting into the personality aspects, more so than the art and the craft. They’re going to hear how we blended our voices and how we gelled as a group. We found a very unique sound. We’re very confident this is a sound that’s missing from what’s on the radio now. There hasn’t been a girl group out there since Destiny’s Child and they were pretty monopolized throughout the whole industry. Along with that we are a girl group coming out with no lead singer. So, they’re going to hear all five girls taking the lead, passing the baton, flip-flopping back and forth throughout all of the tracks. As far as collaborations how was it like working with Timbaland on your first album? Shannon: As new artist we’ve all been on the grind pursuing our dreams and singing and dancing for as long as we’ve been alive. Being in this situation and working with the caliber of the producers was such an honor and very surreal. New artists don’t get to work with Rodney Jerkins, Timbaland, B. Cox, Scott Scorch and the list goes on. So, it was intimidating at first for all of us because they all have different work ethics. We want to put our best foot forward as a group and being a new group and being developed on the show we didn’t quite have that sound yet – these producers helped us develop a sound. It’s not like we were Destiny’s Child and they knew what we were – they didn’t know what we were, we didn’t know what we were. It was all a new process, but an incredible learning process. What was the writing process like for five different people to work together? Dawn: Well, the great thing with Diddy is he actually let us have our way with our creative process. We got a chance to have one-on-one talks with the producers and let them know this is a really big deal for us. We definitely wanted to make sure we believed in what we put down on that paper and able to communicate with people through this record. We sat down and actually brought to the table our ideas of what we wanted to communicate on the album. They were like, okay we get it, you have five strong women who are like, this is what we want – so, each song was catered specifically to what we wanted, to what we wanted to portray and what we wanted to say, which is really important that Diddy let us have that. We are really proud to say that we really contributed to the album and that we really put down what we wanted to put down. The last two groups of Making the Band, O-Town and Da Band, didn’t really go where people thought they would. Do you girls feel a certain pressure to top them or last longer? Aubrey: Not at all, we’re really trying to establish ourselves beyond the television show of Making the Band. We’re definitely grateful we had that opportunity and that it brought all of us together as Danity Kane, but now we’re really trying to move beyond it. Aubrey, on the show it looked like you really weren’t involved in the musical process – is that really the case? Aubrey: No, it was just editing – we don’t have drama in our group as far as catfights. We don’t give you boxing down the stairs! (laughs) So, there had to be some element of drama for people to want to keep tuning in. That just happened to be one of them; it really wasn’t that serious of a moment. I’m all over the album – we are all on the album equally. left There hasn’t been a girl group since the Spice Girls and Destiny’s Child to really have that impact. What do you think you all will bring to the table to resurrect the girl group phenomenon? D. Woods: We were adamant about making sure we were the truth as Diddy coined it. We do it to ourselves, we trained ourselves throughout our coming up and then as a collective to make sure we are substantial vocalist, performers, dancers and writers. We really want to bring that authenticity back to female performers because there are not a lot of them out there and that might be a scary thing for me to come out of my mouth and say, but you see it. We really want to captivate people not only with our appearance, but what we are going to bring with our talent, intellectual, personality and our aspirations in philanthropy. Also, we want to bring out other things that are in our goals like theatre, acting and writing. R&B music is predominately male and when it’s not male, it’s black female. There hasn’t really been an R&B artist or artists who are non-black to really get respect in the urban music industry. How do you three (Aubrey, Shannon and Aundrea) feel about venturing into that territory? Aubrey: Because we are all a multi-ethnic group, which is a really interesting thing, we’ve gotten to learn about each other. We get to experience each other’s culture so that isn’t an issue within this group if we are going to come in and be accepted, or how do we feel about coming in and being accepted. That is not really a top concern for us just because we more so work as a group and feel that we have all elements of a person within us. Just like being accepted into an ultra-pop world – we have elements of all of those types. It’s such a powerful thing, not only for our audience, but for each other because we’ve gotten to learn. I’ve been exposed to so much in the past three years that I feel like I wouldn’t be able to live now without that information. We’ve been blessed within our group. Also, this is just beyond music, culturally the best thing you can do as a person is understand culture because then you can be exposed to so many different walks of life and be able to understand people better. We’ve been given the biggest blessing in this group being that we’re so diverse and that’s a huge part that makes us different. As far as musically, we’re just as talented as The Spice Girls and Destiny’s Child. We have an amazing album and we’re not worried necessarily about that element. We all know that reality show really isn’t real at this point. Is there something you saw on the show that made you feel like you were poorly represented? D. Woods: I think there’s always something you wish they would’ve gotten a little closer to exactly how it happened. Overall everything that you see on the show went down. It just may not have gone down exactly in that sequence or it may not have happened with that intention. It’s a nineteen-minute episode when you cut the commercials out so they can’t really get all of it, they really can’t tell the true story. That’s why we love these types of opportunities to sit with you because we can say, take it with a grain of salt because this is going to be the real, real reality. Aundrea, how did you feel about how your relationship was represented? Aundrea: I feel like it was represented how it definitely happened and I’ve moved on. I definitely think with the show we put out so much personal stuff that now that it’s over it’s like … (sigh) great. What are some of your favorite songs on the album? Dawn: Well, definitely “Show Stopper” because that’s our first single, but each girl has a favorite – I like the ballad "Stay With Me," it’s strong and beautiful. Aubrey: There’s a song by Timbaland called “Wanted” – it’s hot, it’s an upbeat track, it’s a dance record. It’s just huge vocally. The dancing possibilities are endless; it’s definitely taking things to a new level. It’s on that level of what Timbaland is doing right now with Justin, Nelly, but I think even better. D. Woods: Another Timbaland track called “Right Now.” I mean, he is just genius, we are so blessed to have worked with him – I’m very honored. As we were riding here to the building they were playing the old school at noon -- they played Magoo and Aaliyah and I was like, dang he has been holding it down for so long! He always reinvents himself and he gave us a song like “Right Now.” It’s mid to up-tempo, it’s really sexy a lot of different rhythms in there. Is there a tour coming up? Aubrey: We have a lot things coming up so we don’t really want to say anything. We do have a Nordstrom tour coming up so check in with your local Nordstrom. Read more vibe.com online exclusives.

Article tags: Bad Boy, Cassie, Cheri Dennis, Da Band, Danity Kane, Diddy, Makin The Band, Mtv, O-town, Show Stopper 

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