Jon ParelesTHE NEW YORK TIMES
Flo’s singles kept on coming, but where was a full-fledged album? When all its pop machinery was already in motion, the group dared to put its debut on pause.
The initial plan was for the British R&B trio to release a full-length album in 2023 after a string of singles that began in March 2022 with “Cardboard Box,” a coolheaded, close-harmony kiss-off that has been streamed more than 54 million times on Spotify.
After the release of a 2022 EP, “The Lead,” and a hyperactive performing schedule that demonstrated their real-time virtuosity, Flo was named best rising star at the 2023 Brit Awards; they went on to release collaborations with Missy Elliott and Stormzy.
But Flo’s three — singers and songwriters Jorja Douglas, Renée Downer and Stella Quaresma — weren’t satisfied with their album tracks. They didn’t want anything that felt like filler. So amid tour dates for an ever-expanding audience, they took a risk, banking that fans would hold on a bit longer, and found time to continue writing and trying new collaborations. The group’s finished album, “Access All Areas,” finally arrived last November. Now, the trio is on an “Access All Areas” North American tour that arrives Sunday at the Observatory North Park in San Diego.
“We just kept on making music — and we kept on making better music,” Downer said in a pre-concert video interview.
“Access All Areas” flaunts echoes of groups like Destiny’s Child, TLC and the Pussycat Dolls — music the three women, who are in their early 20s, have heard all their lives. “Back then, the standards were much higher,” Quaresma said. “Nowadays, if you’ve got followers, you can be a singer. People can see that we’re really inspired by the real singers and the real artists. I think people are craving that.”
But Flo is also determined to establish its own sound. “The melodies will always be nostalgic, because you’re a product of your environment,” Douglas said. “But we definitely have to be mindful of what’s more current at the moment.”
In the beginning, she added, the group saw that they were “nostalgic” as evidence they’d gotten it right. But their perspective shifted. “I have no problem being compared to Destiny’s Child and TLC and SWV and Sugababes,” Douglas said. “But I definitely want to be in that place where other people are compared to us.”
In Flo’s songs, the three women all get equal time singing lead and harmony vocals, intertwining as they present a united front. “We’re all three very strong individuals,” Downer said. “We all want to sing. We all want to have our own moment to showcase our personal style. But yeah, it really just works itself out.”
From the start, the group was a high-concept project. In 2019, Flo’s initial manager, Rob Harrison, and its label, Island, set out to create an R&B girl group that would revive and update the sound and attitude of acts from the 1990s and 2000s. While that era’s R&B has been a key ingredient in the rise of K-pop, American and British R&B have lately favored solo acts rather than groups. “A girl group was missing from the industry,” Douglas said.
The label auditioned teenage R&B singers, seeking individual and collective chemistry, after it “basically found us all on Instagram,” Downer said.
Flo’s three were ready. They had grown up in an era of professionalized pop training, youth talent competitions and social media self-promotion. Quaresma recalled that even when she was in elementary school in Devon, England, she was determined to become a pop performer.
“I was 12, and I was, like ‘Mom, I’m behind my schedule,’” Quaresma said. “‘Everyone in London is already starting their careers. I’m behind them all. I’ve got to do something.’ So every day after school, I went to dance class and worked on singing.”
Quaresma and Downer met as students at the Sylvia Young Theater School in London, whose alumni include Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora and Emma Bunton, aka Baby Spice of the Spice Girls. Douglas was 14 when she won a televised singing competition on CBBC, the BBC’s channel for children, and she continued to post songs online. Downer and Douglas had befriended each other on Instagram, only to meet in person for the first time during the auditions for Flo.
Part of the audition process assigned singers to work up cover versions as a group. Downer, Douglas and Quaresma quickly found that their tastes aligned; they arranged a mash-up of Frank Ocean and Jazmine Sullivan.
Once chosen, the of Flo began an intense process of self-invention. The lingering girl-group stereotype of Svengali producers controlling naive singers was not for them. But they welcomed hard work, and they spent two years in preparation — songwriting, recording, costumes, choreography — before unveiling Flo.
“We were like, ‘We want boot camp,’” Downer recalled. “We want to be ready. We want to rehearse and practice. We started doing sessions, learning each other’s voices and learning about our blend and how we were going to be unique as a girl group — figuring out what we all liked, what we could bond over.” She said they did write a lot of songs and wanted to release music earlier. “But looking back, the development time was very necessary because we were very young.”
They found a steady collaborator in English songwriter and producer Uzoechi Osisioma Emenike, who records as MNEK (pronounced like his last name) and has worked with Beyoncé, Dua Lipa and Madonna. “Cardboard Box” was one of their first collaborations, back in 2020. In a telephone interview, MNEK said, “They were all like 16, 17, and just figuring it out and learning how to be a group and learning how to harmonize together and how to write together.”
Although Flo tried songwriting sessions via Zoom during the height of the pandemic, the group strongly prefers gathering together in one studio. “It’s just all about conversation,” Quaresma said. “You know, what we’re going through. Sometimes we’re not even going through it; we just want to write a story, make something up. Then we’ll do melodies — either on the mic or on the phone or in the room. And then we write to those melodies.”
Holding back their debut album was not a decision to be taken lightly. Flo persisted.
“They really care about their craft,” MNEK said. “In the 1990s, they would have released an album they weren’t really happy with — and got dropped. The girls did have the luxury of just being, like, ‘This album isn’t right. We need to improve it. We care about this album, and we don’t feel that we have to release music that is subpar — because we haven’t yet.’ They’re all really involved, and nothing’s coming out unless they’re happy with it. They are very strong-willed women, and they have good instincts.”
While their early material relied on British producers, Flo brought in American collaborators for “Access All Areas,” a way to experiment that could also broaden their audience. “Caught Up,” a single from the album, was coproduced by Pop Wansel; it suavely incorporates jazz guitarist Joe ’ solo acoustic version of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.”
“Cardboard Box” and other songs on “The Lead” had little mercy for errant boyfriends. The lyrics on “Access All Areas” allow more room for affection, juggling self-assurance and vulnerability, independence and lusty attachment. (The title song is not about a backstage .) “‘The Lead’ was about shifty men,” Douglas said. “And then ‘Access All Areas’ is a lot more positive, because that reflects where we’re all in our lives.”
The new album also includes an unexpected hard-rock blast — mockingly titled “I’m Just a Girl” — that taunts anyone who underestimates Flo’s ambition or success: “How many Black girls do you see on center stage now?” they sing.
“I think authority is the magic key to Flo,” Douglas said. “It’s just making sure that we always say what we’re thinking. We don’t believe in beating around bushes. And then always making sure our voices are heard. That is one thing that we’ve done from the start, and it’s definitely something that we’ll continue to do.”
She smiled. “It got us this far.”
FLO ACCESS ALL AREAS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Observatory North Park, University Ave., San Diego
Tickets: $12
Online: observatorysd.com/shows
