My favorite group En Vogue continues to make waves in the news. Earlier in the year, original member Maxine Jones returned to the group to make EV a foursome once more. Not long after that, original member Dawn Robinson made news for announcing that she was living in her car by choice. Now Rhona Bennett, who joined En Vogue in 2003 and has been a staple in the group for over 20 years, announced on November 13th that she is departing En Vogue.
I was totally shocked when the message popped up on my feed. As I looked further into it, I found out that En Vogue performed with Salt & Pepa & Spinderella (that group has had it own drama but they looked to have worked it out) where the latter were being honored at the Rock & Hall Hall of Fame as one of their 2025 inductees. Notably absent in the performance was Rhona.
It turns out according to Rhona that she found out about the performance at the same time as the general public. She had a prior commitment that was happening on the same evening as the performance which took place on November 8th. She stated in her announcement post that "It could’ve been nice to attend had [she] been given the opportunity to adjust [her] schedule."
She kept her announcement classy as she generically thanked EV for the opportunity to join the group. I could tell she was just being polite since she didn't mention the members individually by name. One of the things I noted when the group was on their European tour was that I felt like Rhona was being marginalized and regulated into the background since Max returned. Thanks to a fan on Youtube I was able to see their performances. They sang one of their songs Whatever off their EV3 album which was one that they haven't performed in years. The song has two verses that are split. On the album, Cindy sings the first half of verse 1 and Max sings the second half. Terry sings the first half of verse 2 and Cindy again sings the second half of verse 2. The assumption was that had Dawn not left the group, she would've sang the second half of verse 2 instead of Cindy. So since they are a foursome now, I thought it would've been a nice gesture if each singer had a part to sing. But they chose to sing parts like the album, which in one respect stays true to the album, but on the other end, it marginalizes Rhona who is more than capable of singing. The argument could be made that maybe they were lip-synching and had to keep it to how the album had it.
I can't help but wonder with Max being back in the group, things became extra awkward for Rhona. I felt for her even before Max came back when they would do interviews and everything would be on their early years which Rhona was not a part of. She would be a deer in headlights as Cindy and Terry would speak on those times. She was always referred to as the "new member" even after she had been there for more than a decade.
En Vogue purists would always lament that they wanted Max and Dawn back with the group. Dawn actually was my favorite member in their hey-day. I honestly did think that Max and Dawn were the soul of the group and their departures hurt the group overall. But at the same time I loved what Rhona bought to the group. She had her own spin on various songs when given the chance. In the early times when Rhona joined, it felt like Cindy and Terry were hogging all the parts and only giving Rhona scraps to sing.
Sadly En Vogue never had another hit after Max left. They tried with Rocket off their second studio album with Rhona. It did hit #8 on the Billboard Adult R&B Songs chart but it wasn't a smash like their earlier songs in the 90's.
I was disappointed to hear about the drama behind the scenes and feel like Cindy, Max, and Terry did Rhona dirty by not telling her about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame event. I imagine that may have been the final straw that pushed Rhona to make her decision to say deuces to En Vogue. It will be interesting to see if En Vogue gives a statement on the departure. It's not a good look for them. The ladies are in their 60's and they still seem like a bunch of mean girls. Unfortunately though, age does not necessarily bring wisdom.
Rhona did announce that she has a new song that is coming out just before the holidays called “It’s Christmas Time (For You and I),”. I look forward to supporting that when it comes out. I also hope she releases another solo album. Her first and only self-titled album had a lot of great songs. Unfortunately the label she was on folded shortly afterwards so there was no promotion of it. She also has a presence on Youtube so look forward to seeing more of her there. I hope that she blows up to super stardom. That would be the ultimate revenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment