Taken from the spring 2023 issue of Dazed. You may buy a replica of our latest issue here

We may never know what Frank Gehry, renowned designer of Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, thinks about FLO. But meeting the group at Loft Studios in west London I’m reminded of something he said, concerning the role of an architect being to talk of their time and place with a craving for timelessness. The UK pop trio comprised of Jorja Douglas, Renée Downer and Stella Quaresma make music that exploits an analogous tension between the achingly of its moment and the timeless. They’re a bunch that’s undeniably now, but steeped in reverence for what got here before.

“We’re continually moving and changing,” says Rob Harrison, the group’s manager, picking his way through the clutter of their Dazed shoot. “It’s very nuanced the way in which things are put into the world, whether it’s the music or social media posts the ladies are responding to where we’re at now as a team. I feel like that’s the technique to do it. As soon as you’re months ahead, it stunts the potential of the now.”

Amongst timely colloquialisms comparable to ‘period’ – heard when Downer comments on one in all her looks for today’s shoot – is a bunch fluent within the idioms of past eras, which they’ve been quick to reference boldly across their public appearances so far. Lyrics like “Come take your shit ’cause you possibly can go stay at hers”, from their resonant debut single “Cardboard Box”, throw back to uber-assertive 00s ballads like Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” and Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable”, while their ever-evolving harmonies – try their recent performance of “Immature” for Vevo’s DSCVR platform – take an instantaneous steer from En Vogue, The Supremes et al.

In a musical climate that some have characterised as relying an excessive amount of on nostalgia, FLO embrace the influence of their forebears. And yet, all signs point to them being the genre’s future – in December of last yr, they won the Brits Rising Star award, an accolade they followed a number of weeks later by scooping the BBC’s Sound of 2023 prize. As Downer sets her phone on the table, her silk press still immaculate an hour after it was retouched, she rationalises the group’s commitment to spotlighting past iterations of R&B. “[Our references] are real,” she says with an audible passion and care in her tone; it reflects the organised and poised character she says she adds to the group. “My mum was born in 1983, and she or he had me when she was 19; that was the music she was listening to as an individual, a teen, a young mother, and that’s what’s in me.” Mockingly, Rihanna will be heard inches away from us through the speakers, “Same Ol’ Mistakes” lingering within the background before fading out. “I used to be listening to my homegirls Rihanna and Ciara growing up. You may’t fake that.”

Being placed together by a Universal callout on the lookout for singers to check out for a recent girl group, their beginnings echo that of a Making the Band or Chasing Destiny imprint in that iterations of what would later be monikered FLO were trialled and tested through early 2019. Downer was placed with Quaresma, a schoolmate and coveted Instagram ‘close friend’ at Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, at one in all the primary group tryouts, alongside an unnamed third member who originally rounded out the trio. After one other chemistry check, Downer’s instincts told her they need to add Douglas, whom she knew from the social media world of London singers, to their arrangement.

After the shoot, west London-based Quaresma tells me she never envisaged herself performing as a part of a bunch – but all that modified once the three of them set to work. “Once we were a bunch, it began to make sense,” she says of the sparks that flew when the lineup was assembled. “It’s that feeling of not being alone – like, even if you happen to’re scared, you’re scared with other people. But my mother, who never initially saw me in a bunch, was so completely happy I used to be placed into such a crazy, unpredictable industry with girls who all feel the identical.”

The breakout success of FLO’s 2022 single “Cardboard Box”, which peaked on the UK official singles chart at 76 and located international success in each Latest Zealand’s Hot Singles chart (#19) and Japan’s Hot Overseas rating (#17), was instinctively at all times anticipated by the group. Nevertheless, internal wrangling with the label solid doubts on whether the only would ever be released. “It wasn’t that they were trying to regulate us,” says Douglas. “It’s just that they’re used to doing things in a specific way and having autonomy. I believe FLO were very confident in what we desired to do, so we just needed to present that to them and talk them through it.” Downer is more pithy in her assessment of what went down. “We are able to’t put rubbish songs out. It just wouldn’t be a thing because we all know we’re a lot better than that,” she argues, clarifying that not one of the early tracks suggested by the label for his or her first single saw the sunshine of day on their 2022 The Lead EP.

“Once we were a bunch, it began to make sense. It’s that feeling of not being alone – like, even if you happen to’re scared, you’re scared with other people” – Stella Quaresma

Presenting a united front hasn’t just been a winning formula for FLO in battling the music business – it’s been integral to their creative spark from day one. As their creative director and sonic architect, MNEK is hailed by the group because the fourth member of FLO. “MNEK is all of our idols in a single, he’s so talented, and there’s a lot to learn from him. He’s really laid the groundwork for us to be comfortable,” says Downer, who notes the producer’s role in encouraging the trio to be more audacious with their lyrics, and in adapting to the formal studio setting. On The Lead, that confidence will be heard in songs that draw power from lived experience: the palpably Timbaland-influenced “Feature Me”, for instance, guides a generation of Gen Z listeners into the minds of every group member, ushering in a pronounced vulnerability.

References to Black Britishness and Black womanhood abound when chatting with the ladies. Whether it’s the classic ‘plantain’ or ‘plantin’ diasporic debate I actually have with Downer, the references to retouching Quaresma’s wig and the way she toys together with her curls on set, or Douglas’s relentless stanning of the one-woman “vocal bible” Brandy, the trio refuse to draw back from their identities on this regard. It’s a welcome antidote to the shocking levels of racism many Black British women have been exposed to within the industry: within the acclaimed 2021 documentary Race, Pop & Power, Sugababes’ Keisha Buchanan talks about wanting to be “seen for myself” amid tabloid stories portraying her because the stereotypical ‘indignant Black woman’. FLO feel like a timely rejoinder to such tales of rampant misogynoir, championing Black womanhood as a fundamental a part of their creativity. “Our music is for the Black ladies,” Downer shares. Harrison, for his part, is mindful of his position as a white man in how he navigates the nuances of managing the group. He knows that, historically, Britain isn’t at all times first to champion Black women and says so in our exchange.

“Often whenever you communicate with people, things will be based on presumption and assumptions – there’s simply not time to get into why at every moment,” he begins. “But there’s an additional pressure for me to make certain I understand their experience and what they need to do next.” Listening to their interactions with Harrison over the course of the day, a way of the trust and synergy between them is obvious. While he does reveal a further party has recently been added into the equation – renowned manager Sam Eldridge – the foundations are seemingly in place for synchronicity.

While the ladies contort out and in of Paco Rabanne looks on set, their social team pronounces FLO’s debut North American tour online, and the joy within the room is tangible. Everyone from press to hair stylists congratulates the ladies repeatedly throughout the day, and the topic spills naturally into our conversation. In a number of days’ time, they’ll enter 4 weeks of rehearsals: recent, as-yet-unreleased music to learn line-by-line, Kash Powell-curated choreography, vocal training. It’s the type of brutal pop-star training regimen Frank Gatson would prescribe for Destiny’s Child. “We’re on treadmills ensuring we are able to still sing; it’s a crazy month ahead,” says Downer. “But once we recover from that, we are able to finally be excited concerning the yr.” Douglas says she sometimes struggles together with her nerves, and is leaning on the boldness choreographer Powell has taught her as a first-time dancer to dive into the experience with flair. And for Quaresma, it’s about using her innate calm – inherited from her mother – to assist the group conquer what’s to return. “My mother has at all times navigated experiences with grace; I attempt to hold myself to that standard,” she says. “[It’s about] knowing the best way to manoeuvre in difficult situations.”

While on tour within the States, the ladies will moreover look to complete their debut album, which Downer says is about “45 per cent” complete. All imagine that a more holistic body of labor is the way in which forward for the group. After the shoot, Douglas and I are among the many last to go away. As we sit on the sofa awaiting our Ubers, she gushes over the prospect of reuniting with R&B superproducer Rodney ‘Darkchild’ Jerkins. “We worked with him in London and he’s just amazing,” she says. “He taught us to sing our background vocals 16 times – he used to try this with Brandy and Michael Jackson.” Douglas adds that Ariana Grande collaborator Victoria Monét and D’Mile are also on her wishlist of producers to work with.

Despite the group’s wholehearted embrace of the genre, Douglas is wary of headlines positioning FLO on the vanguard of a recent generation of R&B. “I do feel like we’re also trying to determine ourselves in that pop and mainstream space as well,” says the singer, citing Bellah and Jvck James as more conventionally R&B than her group. “UK R&B is well and truly alive [beyond FLO], it’s just not as appreciated because it could possibly be by mainstream platforms that put people on to music. However it’s definitely there.”

Hair MELL’ROSE and ALIYAH WILLOUGHBY, make-up SABA KHAN and LISAMARIE MCDONAGH, set design LYDIA CHAN at NEW SCHOOL, movement direction YAGAMOTO at NEW SCHOOL, photographic assistants BENJAMIN BUTCHER, WYNSTON SHANNON, styling assistants ANNIE SEVERS, ELOISE JENNER, production PRODUCING LOVE, post-production INK

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