Words by Elliott Hollingsbee
This week we take a look at FLO, the British R&B girl group on a meteoric rise so promising, they’ve caught the eyes of Stormzy and Missy Elliott.
One year ago, when I first saw a clip from the ‘Cardboard Box’ music video on Twitter, I immediately knew that I was experiencing something special. This was FLO, the next big British girl group, made up of Jorja Douglas, Stella Quaresma, and Renée Downer. Based off their first single and video, anyone can see that these girls ooze a genuine star quality and talent in copious amounts:the looks,the personalities, the harmonies, what’s not to love?
While all of the above are impressive, there are two things about FLO that stand out to me the most, the first being the word-of-mouth nature of their rise to stardom.Day by day, engagement with the ‘Cardboard Box’ tweet grew, eventually to over 100,000 likes. I told my friends, they told their friends and, soon, the group had outgrown the confines of a a viral Twitter video and into a song, and later EP, that my friends and I could jam to together. All this came from just one song: it was akin to Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ viral success, but without the Disney springboard – making it even more impressive. Iconic if you ask me.
The other stand out element for me was the meticulous approach to the group’s formation: the group was formed in 2019 but released no music until 3 years later in 2022. It’s evident that the girls’ talents were nurtured, and their overall sound refined during this time, resulting in the unique combination of a fresh, yet throwback R&B sound, one that the UK, and even perhaps the global, music scene so desperately needed.
With their debut album scheduled for release later this year, a new single at the end of the month, and their first headlining-debut shows (both in the UK and the U.S.) scheduled for March and April respectively, 2023 looks to be the year of FLO. They’ve already won a BRIT Award, an EMA, and were named BBC’s Sound of 2023, achieving all of this before their Stormzy collab and Missy Elliott co-sign.
Fifth Harmony are dead and buried, just as Little Mix also are gone, but never forgotten. As for BLACKPINK, they seem to be stuck everywhere and anywhere, just not in a recording studio. Now, we have FLO: when the world needed the saviours of the girl group genre the most, they arrived, and they are most certainly here to stay.