FEATURE:
Free You Mind
En Vogue's Funky Divas at Thirty
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LOOKING ahead to 24th March…
that is the day we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of En Vogue’s Funky Divas. I am going to get to a couple of reviews for an album that, in 1992, did not get an overwhelmingly positive response. Looking back, it is strange critics did not see the wonder and sheer quality of Funky Divas! Following the success of their Grammy Award–nominated debut album Born to Sing (1990), En Vogue reteamed with their founders Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy to work on the album. With classics like My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It) and Free Your Mind in the pack, it is no wonder En Vogue (Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron, Maxine Jones and Dawn Robinson) inspired acts like TLC and Destiny's Child. With incredibly strong vocal work, I think that En Vogue were one of the strongest groups of the 1990s. All-female bands that would follow often had some vocal weakness. Maybe it was a lack of soul or something quite ordinary. En Vogue were pure class and there was no weakness anywhere at all! Funky Divas is rife with soulful and funky vocals that are sexy, smooth, fierce and phenomenal! Funky Divas became the second album from En Vogue to earn a Grammy Award nomination in the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals category. With strong songs perfectly assorted through the album, there is no stronger side. You get this consistency the whole way through. Give It Up, Turn It Loose is one of my favourite tracks from the album. Before getting to a couple of positive reviews for a truly iconic album, there are some features worth bringing in.
Albuism marked twenty-five years of Funky Divas back in 2017. A big leap in terms of confidence and sonic range compared to Born to Sing, Funky Divas announced En Vogue as a huge force to be reckoned with:
“Born to Sing had been piloted by the producer-songwriter duo of Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, formerly of Club Noveau. The gentlemen had also been the impetus behind founding En Vogue two years prior to Born to Sing. But was that all there was to the ladies? Four women simply singing material placed in front of them? Their second long player Funky Divas suggested that there was much more to the quartet. Though Foster and McElroy's pen and production style set the template for Funky Divas, the material was brought to life by Jones, Herron-Braggs, Robinson and Ellis. A producer is only as good as his or her artist, and En Vogue were never in short supply of personality or talent.
It was understood by the group, Foster and McElroy that a repeat performance of Born to Sing wouldn't make the grade for round two. For them to push through the din of competitive noise coming from their peer group in the R&B girl group market, they needed to innovate. Their second album saw En Vogue continue to mine the contemporary ore of the urban music landscape of the period, but they paired it with unforgettable grooves and melodies to guarantee the songs lasted past the epoch of their creation. There were also a few surprises tucked into Funky Divas too.
However, when En Vogue tapped “The Payback” (by James Brown), an R&B and hip-hop sample touchstone by 1992, it could have felt reductive, especially given that the sample had powered their inaugural charter “Hold On.” But, as always, En Vogue found a way to flip something established and make it work for them. The resulting soul sass of Funky Divas’ lead single, “My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)” (US #2, US R&B #1, US Dance #8), became another signature hit for the group. Aesthetically, the song seamlessly straddled the medium between classic and modern soul music. “My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)” was released on March 17, 1992, and Funky Divas arrived the following Tuesday on March 24, 1992.
The record was an immediate smash, commercially and creatively. Following “My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It),” the record produced four more singles between June 1992 and February 1993, including “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” (US #6, US R&B #1), “Free Your Mind” (US #8, US R&B #23), “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” (US #15, US R&B #16) “Love Don't Love You” (US #36, US R&B #31).
Musically and visually, En Vogue were definitely holding their own. Funky Divas evinced that mainstream R&B could continually cross over to white listeners without losing its core constituency. A prime example of this is “Free Your Mind,” one of the album’s aforementioned surprises. A searing rock number that challenged racism, sexism and other social phobias head on was all at once, smart, sexy and provocative. Its Mark Romanek directed video left a lasting impression and contributed to the song's enduring pop culture visibility long after the 1990s concluded.
Their reworking of “Something He Can Feel” as “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” was also a coup. The song was written by Curtis Mayfield and initially rendered by the actresses/vocalists Lonette McKee, Irene Cara and Dwan Smith in the 1976 cult classic Sparkle. But, it found radio affection when Aretha Franklin, controversially, delivered it on the companion soundtrack. En Vogue's version restored the song to its girl group roots and brought it forward into a new decade, reverently, but boldly. They also tackled the Mayfield-penned “Hooked On Your Love” from the same film, again, bringing the song back to its original group approach. The additional non-single tracks fared strongly too, courtesy of the bright, black pop of “This Is Your Life,” hip-hop dance music on the appropriately titled “Hip Hop Lover,” an ambitious cover of The Beatles’ “Yesterday,” and the seductive jazz funk of “Desire.”
In the end, Funky Divas was certified platinum three times over in America and moved over five million copies worldwide. Sadly, behind the scenes of the success of their second album, En Vogue was contending with internal and external pressures that plagued the group as they moved further into the 1990s. Label disputes, in-fighting, and line-up shifts buffeted the three excellent albums that came in the wake of Funky Divas: EV3 (1997), Masterpiece Theatre (2000) and Soul Flower (2004). With Soul Flower, the group welcomed Rhona Bennett―a one-time Mouseketeer, actress and Rodney Jerkins protégé―to the fold. She, along with Terry Ellis and Cindy Herron-Braggs comprise En Vogue today, and the trio is currently putting the finishing touches on their much-anticipated sixth long player, Electric Café, due for release later in the year.
Regardless of the drama that has threatened to subsume En Vogue's legacy, Funky Divas was both an affirmation of the past and (then) present of R&B music. The album still captivates audiences inside and outside of the R&B genre, and stands as a truly classic girl group record that set the standard for others to follow in the years to come”.
Not to use an article so extensively, but a 2012 feature from Soul Culture brought in producers and songwriters Thomas McElroy and Denzil Foster. They gave their recollections and impressions of an album that has definitely been reassessed given its impact on other groups. Funky Divas is such a compelling work:
“After selling over one million copies of their debut album, Born to Sing, En Vogue decided to experiment with their sound for their sophomore effort. Released on March 24, 1992 by Eastwest Records, with Funky Divas they delivered an album for the ages.
Upon releasing their follow up, expectations were elevated due to the instant commercial impact they made with their debut. En Vogue returned to the studio determined to broaden their listening audience and produce another high quality album not only for them, but for popular culture.
As a result, their careers landed them in esteemed company. This album would see En Vogue asserting their dominance over their contemporaries in the Pop and R&B genres respectively.
It was mutually agreed upon to take their sound in a more pop-friendly direction over the heavy R&B/Soul influence from their previous album. Alongside the transcendent production duo, Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, En Vogue was able to carve their names in the Mount Rushmore of great female groups of all-time. Funky Divas introduced the concept of an all Black female quartet touching on four different genres of music ranging from R&B/Soul to Rock.
En Vogue’s formula for success was based around the breathtaking beauty of the four group members and their incomparable vocal talents. Cindy Herron, a soprano, Dawn Robinson, Terry Ellis, and Maxine Jones all had five octave ranges that allowed the group to interchange lead and background singers instantaneously. Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy were influential in the formation of this groundbreaking quartet. And together they ascended to the heights of superstardom.
As the story goes in 1989, En Vogue became a trio before the inclusion of Terry Ellis later on in the assembling process. Initially, the group name was For You then it was changed to Vogue, but after learning another group had claimed that moniker, Foster and McElroy settled on En Vogue as the final name. Under their tutelage and Sylvia Rhone’s influence, En Vogue arrived on the musical scene in 1990. Their debut album only foreshadowed what was to come and two years later they found themselves in a league of their own.
Between the months of May 1991-January 1992, Funky Divas was recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California.
SoulCulture recently sat down with Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, the executive producers for the album to share their blueprint for creating a definitive record.
Foster and McElroy describe their thought process in formulating the group.
“When Tommy and I were in Club Nouveau, we were talking about what we wanted to do once we started producing,” says Foster. “One thing we kept talking about was there wasn’t a super girl group in the mainstream. There were the Supremes-like groups that had one lead singer and the rest were background singers. I can’t remember an all girl group where they all had powerhouse vocals and could sing lead. So when we left Club Nouveau and finished working with Toni, Tony, Tone! we were able to get another production deal and we were looking for acts to sign. This is when we decided to put the group together.”
“In the era that we’re talking about, girl groups were going out of style like The Labelles, The Pointer Sisters and dance groups like Vanity 6,” says McElroy. “There weren’t any girl groups that were truly singing at that point in time. We wanted to bring back that big girl group. Denny was big on having soulful harmonies and bringing in more lead singers that you could switch around on different songs. It was like a vision of having an all-star group of women that came together. We said, ‘What if you had Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Patti Labelle and Chaka Khan all in one group?’
“Right at that time when we were putting the group together, we had to make a decision to do a cattle call or do it under the radar,” says Foster. “We ended up choosing the latter and we had 19-20 different submissions of tapes and pictures. From there, we interviewed them because the other part of the group would be their intellectual side. They had to be classy and have the demeanor for the group. It wasn’t just about the singing; it was about how they carried themselves as well.
Of the six girls we had, there was always a combination of two or three that sounded great in the studio together. The auditions were pretty brutal. Not only did they not know it each other, but they had to sit in a room and learn the songs we gave to them in two hours. And they had to listen to me sing the lead and I’m not a singer at all,” he laughs.
“They didn’t get two takes, they only had one take and we kept the tape rolling. If they forgot the lyrics, they had to improvise and make it work. Two hours later, some people started complaining. We had a microphone in one of the rooms where they were at so we could hear what they were talking about. The griping started big time. They were all great singers, but they couldn’t handle the pressure.
He continues. “We were sold on three of the girls after all of this took place. Another one showed up which was Terry and she was late. After she showed up late, she had a demeanor as if she wasn’t going to make the group because of what happened to her at the airport. She had less time than the others, but she tore up all of the songs we gave to her to sing including the background vocals. At that point, we sent them all home.
“Tommy and I went back and forth on our decision. We were sold on Cindy and Max, but we kept going back and forth between Dawn and Terry because both Dawn and Terry were so versatile and had such range with their vocals. One day, Tommy said, ‘Who said it had to be three?’ he laughs. “Then the lights went off and I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ This is how it ended up being the four girls instead of three.
Foster and McElroy discuss their mindset and focus going into the second album
“The approach for their first album was much more of a raw, street approach,” says McElroy. “The grooves were a little bit more serious to me. To me, when we first did ‘Lies’ and ‘Hold On,’ I was thinking about making those tracks more Hip Hop sounding and a little bit grittier. If you listen to some of the ballads we did on the first album, they were a little gritty as well.
“On that album, we were still trying to get familiar with the girls too. Terry and Cindy got a little more play on there because their voices had a little more appeal. It was very concentrated effort to make them a little more pop sounding on the second album. I know for Denny, he wanted to show that not only Cindy and Terry could do leads, but Max and Dawn as well. He definitely wanted to showcase all four of them on the second album.”
“On the second album we had to graduate from our sound on their first album,” says Foster. “We were able to be more diverse because they had an audience and we wanted to expand their audience on the second album. Not only to show that the other girls were powerhouse singers, but they could sing traditional R&B and pop records as well.”
Foster and McElroy recall the techniques they used in the production phases for the album.
“We did a lot of the pre-production work in our heads,” says Foster. “We would go through things and before we decided to do a song; we made sure we were going to complete it. Our process was we didn’t record 50 songs and choose ten. If the songs didn’t make the cut musically for Tommy and me, the girls wouldn’t even hear those at all. Once the music made the cut, we knew that it could be a good song.
After that point, we would go through the process of making sure the lyrics and vocals were tight. On ‘My Lovin’ it was three different songs before it became what you heard. ‘Free Your Mind’ was the same way. There were 11 songs on the album and we had two different versions of each. Sometimes I would have to write new lyrics or a new melody to fit the various versions. We got this process from our days at Club Nouveau. We didn’t have the money to do 30 or 40 tracks for the album. We made it work.”
“We weren’t the type of producers to stay in the studio for a year working on an album,” says McElroy. “It wasn’t ever that serious. Some of the stuff we would work on at home and then take it to the studio. Three or four months in the studio for us is a long time. For that album, we were in the studio for three months. It was one of the longest times we spent in the studio for a group or artist.”
Foster remembers how the lead single “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” evolved in stages.
“My Lovin” was one of the most difficult songs to make,” says Foster. “It was three songs before it became one because we kept rewriting it over and over again. The track was always dope to us, but we would say something just wasn’t right. As producers, we would go in to listen and we had no problems about criticizing ourselves. We would be listening to this one song and the both of us would get this look on our face and say something still isn’t right. We would strip down the song and say it wasn’t the drum beat and the bass line was pretty hot.
“We would get to a point where we would add something and say, ‘Yea, now we’re getting somewhere.’ We did this for many of the songs on the second album. But when it came to ‘My Lovin’ it was really a nightmare because we really loved the track, but we felt like everything we would put down on the track sounded whack. It meant that the girls had to get back in and sing it and I had to get back to rewriting the lyrics or change it altogether. Then we went all the way to the mix of the song and we were done with the song, but there was this thing with the breakdown towards the end.
He adds. “It was just the breakdown of the musical chants and what not. The acapella sounds weren’t there yet. At that point, the girls were exhausted and said it was fine,” he laughs. “Tommy and I were talking and we were like yea it sounds good, but there was something about it that kept bugging me. It was the weakest part of the song to me because we took it to this high level and then the track goes into this insignificant breakdown. I felt like we needed to get something else going.
Tommy and I kept going back and forth with ideas. Finally, I said we didn’t have a signature acapella thing going on like we did at the beginning of “Hold On.” Tommy started playing a set of chords and I said, ‘Yea, like that!’ We ran them in the studio and we were still going through the mix. We were in the part of the studio where the piano was and we were going through this part. It sounded so cool and I came up with the lyrics ‘Never Gonna Get It…’ At that moment, I thought yea this is going to set it off really nice. We actually had an alternative version to this song just in case the record company didn’t like the original version.”
“My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” went on to peak at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, #1 on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles Chart and #4 on the UK Singles Chart. It charted in nine different countries and propelled sales for Funky Divas after it was released to music audiences in the early spring of 1992.
En Vogue’s second single from the album was the classic remake of a 1976 hit by Aretha Franklin, “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” and Foster tells a fascinating story of how the song came together with assistance from the movie Sparkle.
“Giving Him Something He Can Feel” was all traditional except for the bass I used on the track,” says Foster. “The horns were played live on the track. The hi-hat was live on there as well. I always liked how it had a nice sound to it because it sounded like the movie version of the song. We heard Aretha Franklin’s version, but I felt like the movie version of the song was more intimate. I told the girls that’s the way we were going to approach the song. They were happy because they weren’t trying to compete with Aretha vocally.
We didn’t know what we were going to talk about on the track. The free your mind part came out of us just writing lyrics down. Then we said to ourselves, ‘Free your mind about what?’ Prejudice. When they started to doing the song, we knew no one was going to accept it. We knew that we were going to get some backlash from the record company. We said to ourselves why are people so prejudice about music because they are. We think certain people should sing certain songs in different genres of music. Prejudice was about more than color so we decided to attack the song that way.”
“When Denny started “Free Your Mind,” he was playing that riff in the song, but neither one of us played the guitar,” says McElroy. “Our engineer at the time, Steve Pounder was a guitar player. He knew a guy named Jinx Jones and he played and overdubbed a bunch of guitar sounds. He was an older rock guy and he knew all of the classic tones. He knew guitars like we knew synthesizers and pianos. He came in and Denny produced all of those guitar tracks with him on there. They layered and stereo them and got all of the tones right. It was a big part of our sound. We got a good mix of the rock sound that he had and the R&B sound that we had. I kind of spruced up the drums a little bit.”
“Free Your Mind” went on to peak at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, #23 on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles Chart and #6 on the UK Singles Chart. This song also charted in seven different countries.
The next single to be released would be “Give It Up, Turn It Loose.” Foster and McElroy remember the influences and how easy it was making the record.
“Give It Up, Turn It Loose” was our own version of a Soul II Soul type of beat,” Foster laughs. “We were saying to ourselves that we went a little too far with some of the other records on the album and that it was time to come back home to R&B tones. Soul II Soul was such an influence on the hip-hop part when it came to R&B that all the beats were going in that rhythm. We obviously needed to do that type of song for the album and the girls could sing. So it was a good time to showcase Maxine again and let her basically have her own song. It was fun and easy to do. It didn’t take us long to write the song either.”
“We’re both big Beatles fans,” says Foster. “We had something from the first album where we did the ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Company’ acapella rendition so we wanted to showcase the girls’ four part harmonies again. We could have gone in a thousand different directions with songs from the Beatles, but the girls and I liked the song ‘Yesterday.’ This song has passionate chords within in it. Something really grabs you about that song.
Once we started working with it vocally, the song allows you room to do whatever because it is so simple. We started working out the quartet parts on it. When they sung it without the drums, the song sounded great! It really didn’t need the music behind it, but then somebody would have said it was dead time on radio space if we didn’t put something behind it. I think Tommy just put some beat behind it and played keyboard.”
McElroy expresses his feelings on the record twenty years later: “If you really listen to the album, you could tell it was a fun album and we were having a lot of fun making it. There was a lot of humor in the way we did the tracks and in the skits we were doing. It was a good time in our lives… If you listen to the first album, we were more serious. On the second album, we had a certain ease about everything and it flowed naturally.”
Funky Divas peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart and #1 on the Billboard R&B Albums Chart in the spring of 1992 and has went on to sell more than five million albums worldwide. The album has achieved multi-platinum status in three different countries proving its impact and effect on popular culture.
To this day, it’s regarded as the one of the greatest albums from the 1990s and remains the highest selling album of the group’s career. This album earned a plethora of Grammy, American Music Award and Soul Train Music Award nominations and wins. Funky Divas set the standard for other Pop infused R&B records for the remainder of the decade. It will continue to be a bellwether of what quality music sounds like when forces of nature collide to create a piece of art that has never been heard or seen before”.
I am going to finish off with a couple of reviews. This is what the BBC noted when they sat down with Funky Divas. The sense of fun and energy through the album is infectious and timeless:
“By the time of this, their second album, En Vogue were on their way to becoming one of the most successful female vocal acts of all time. The group – Cindy Herron, Dawn Robinson, Maxine Jones and Terry Ellis – represented intelligence, beauty and liberation, with a selection of well-chosen material that showcased both their strength and independence.
En Vogue had been put together in Oakland, California by producers Thomas McElroy and Denzil Foster, who had previously overseen work by Club Nouveau and Tony! Toni! Toné!. They had been looking to update the soul girl-group template, which at that point in the US had remained largely static since Motown.
Born to Sing, En Vogue’s 1990 debut, was immediate and infectious. The group’s vocal blend and succulent choice of songs was designed for maximum commerciality, a silky antidote to the gangsta rap that was then so prevalent in the US. The fact that they looked stunning (Herron was a former Miss Black California) did them little harm, as each single was accompanied with videos devoured by MTV.
McElroy and Foster were magpies of the highest order and Funky Divas revels – in the most creative way possible – in its thievery. It borrows from new jack swing, hip hop, classic soul and, in the case of stand-out track Free Your Mind, heavy metal. The blend was irresistible. From the smooth old-school groove of Give It Up, Turn It Loose, to the pop sensibility of My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It) and the delicious cover of Curtis Mayfield’s Giving Him Something He Can Feel, there is an undeniable zest here.
The only real wrong-foot is the clanking new jack swing version of The Beatles’ Yesterday. Herron’s singing is fair enough, but the world really didn’t need another rendition of the song, and certainly not one with crunching drum machines giving their all.
En Vogue’s strain of soul and sassiness can be seen as a direct influence on both Destiny’s Child and, in the UK, All Saints and the Spice Girls. Aside from a few dated production tics, Funky Divas still sounds as much fun today as it did in 1992”.
Finishing off, AllMusic are among those who have given Funky Divas their acclaim and backing. Such is the depth and variety of material on the album, nobody can deny its class and quality! Almost thirty years after it came out, I cannot think of another R&B album like it:
“The 1990s were a time when hip-hop infused with R&B became pop music, and at the forefront of this movement was En Vogue. Their most commercially and critically successful album, Funky Divas, stands as one of the best pop/R&B albums to emerge from that time, incorporating soul, hip-hop, pop, dance, and rock to create one of the era's most diverse, dazzling, and exciting pieces of work. The album, which is basically free of filler, scored no less than five hit singles, three of which became Top Ten pop hits. Additionally, several other album tracks became dance hits and received considerable airplay as well. These include the unstoppable "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)," which combined perfect harmonies, street sass, and 1990s female assertion to create one of the biggest hits of 1992, as well as a catch phrase which became ubiquitous in popular culture. Other hits include their sophisticated, shimmering Top Ten remake of "Giving Him Something He Can Feel," a ghetto love fable initially popularized by Aretha Franklin, the doo wop good-feelin' "Give It Up Turn It Loose," the jazzy "Love Don't Love You," and the hard rock smash "Free Your Mind." The last was a hit which, following the summer of the Los Angeles riots, struck a chord with national audiences by coaxing people to let down their guards about racism and prejudice. Other highlights include the great opener "This Is Your Life," the hip-hop tracks "Hip Hop Lover" and "It Ain't Over Till the Fat Lady Sings," the house track "What Is Love," the sexy, Middle Eastern-influenced "Desire," and their wonderful, should-have-been-a-hit version of Curtis Mayfield's "Hooked on Your Love." Combining sass, elegance, and class with amazing vocals and perfect production, this delightful set stands as one of the 1990s definitive pop albums”.
On 24th March, Funky Divas turns thirty. Not only one of the best albums of the 1990s, I think it ranks up there with some of the best albums ever! It was the last album from the quartet. 1997’s EV3 marked their first album without Dawn Robinson, who decided to leave the group late into the recording of EV3 in favour of a solo recording contract. Funky Divas, therefore, is a moment when the incredible quartet were solid and in unison. It is a shame they could not continue on longer as they were. Listen to Funky Divas and play it loud. Such a remarkable album, it remains stunning and compelling…
THIRTY years on.