Flo Milli
20-year old, Alabama born rapper, Flo Milli has taken the Internet by storm in her short accent. Releasing her first official track “Beef FloMix” on her SoundCloud in late 2018, she had gone viral by early 2019 on TikTok, marking her breakout success and she hasn’t let up since. Releasing tracks and visuals throughout 2019, she followed up with “In The Party” which has been streamed and viewed nearly 200 million times worldwide.
Known for her bubbly delivery and aggressive bars, in July 2020 she took the internet by storm once again with the release of her debut mixtape, Ho, why is you here? On the project, Flo exudes unapologetic confidence and empowers females with her experiences shared in her music, making her a relatable youth figure. Standout tracks from the project include the SWV-sampling “Weak” and “May I.” The mixtape received great critical support upon release landing on the covers of Spotify’s “Feelin Myself” playlist and Apple Music’s “On Repeat,” along with two Spotify New Music Friday billboards this summer. She received rave reviews in the press from the likes of New York Magazine, Pitchfork, Complex, FADER and NYLON, with many calling her the next female rapper to break through and coining Ho, why is you here ? as one of the best projects this summer.
Good Girl
Good Girl are redefining what it means to be a “good girl”—as well as R&B as we know it. The Philadelphia-based quartet of Bobbie, Megan, Arielle, and JL have spent years honing their talents and building a considerable fanbase through their viral covers online, and through their new label home of RCA, Good Girl are coming in strong with a new EP later this year and their debut album in 2020. The world won’t know what hit it, and that’s certainly a good thing.
All four members of Good Girl hail from the East Coast and met in various permutations through dance, eventually convening in Philadelphia. “We all stayed in contact and remained friends,” Bobbie reminisces on Good Girl’s origin story. “Philly just means so much to us,” Ari continues regarding the group’s home base. “It’s a melting pot of creativity and art. We pull from everything and incorporate it into what we do. There’s so many legends that came out of Philly, so it set the bar super high for us.”
With the quartet hunkered down in Philly, career inspiration struck when they performed a gig in the city, where they covered songs from musical inspirations like TLC and En Vogue. “The audience was reacting to us like, ‘Y’all gotta do this professionally,’ and we were like, ‘This is kind of dope, we should do this!'” Bobbie recalls. They immediately got to work on building their group dynamic, regularly posting viral videos on Instagram of the four of them singing and dancing to classic R&B songs in their car, with JL and Bobbie handling the choreography. “Sometimes we’ve done songs that people have suggested, or mash-ups of songs—but most of the time it’s been a combination of what our core fans want to hear and what we like,” Megan explains.
The buzz on Good Girl built to a point where they eventually signed with RCA, heading out to Los Angeles to work on new music: “This last year has been amazing,” Ari gushes. “We love working with RCA, and everyone is really excited about us, so that kind of energy sets the tone.” The new material that Good Girl have been cooking up in the studio showcases their growth as artists and as human beings, as Ari describes the new sound as “Edgier—more grit and attitude, more rapping.”
And one of the new songs showing that darker edge is “Misery,” which draws from the dissolution of a relationship that Ari experienced when the group started recording. “I’d just gotten out of a relationship—it was a really bad breakup,” she recalls. “When we went out to L.A. to record, I was sad and heartbroken, and everyone was like, ‘Let’s pull from this! Tell us how you’re feeling.’ It talks about someone who’s made their bed and lying in it. I’m turning up and I’m onto a new vibe now.”
“There have been artists who have influenced us, but this time around, we’ve found our sound,” JL continues, citing R&B touchstones like Destiny’s Child and TLC as some of the group’s foundational influences. “We want to make sure people know who Good Girl are from the jump.” And according to JL, that includes solidifying what being a “good girl” means to them: “A good girl is just a bad girl that’s never been caught,” she explains. “Every girl out there has their version of a good girl, and the four of us represent different types of ‘good girls.’ We want everybody to embrace their differences—just because you don’t fit the definition of a ‘good girl’ doesn’t mean you’re not the bomb or fantastic.” And that means embracing the individual spirit in a way that lasts forever: “We’re really big on confidence and being true to yourself—girl power, black girl magic,” Bobbie enthuses. “We want everyone to be able to relate to our music, and for it to be timeless as well.”
BOBBIE
Born in Alexandria, Virginia and raised in Maryland, Bobbie started out as a dancer from an early age: “I was trained since I was two years old.” After continuing to pursue dance throughout high school, she took up singing but was initially unsure of her own talents. “I was shy singing because I was more confident at dancing,” Bobbie explains. “I put so much pressure on myself, but I started to come into my own.” And that self-discovery came full-circle when she met the other three members of Good Girl, eventually moving to Philadelphia to join the group officially. “I was new to recording, harmonizing—everything,” she recalls. “It was a really cool experience to learn from all of them and come into my own with singing and being an artist alongside these girls.” Citing influences ranging from ’90s R&B like Brandy and Mariah Carey to current-day artists like Chris Brown, J. Cole, and Drake, Bobbie styles her Good Girl look in the color orange because “I think of myself as spicy and sweet—mostly spicy—and I wanted a color to represent that. It defines my boldness and the ability to be strong in who I am.”
MEGAN
Hailing from South Jersey, Megan started singing when she was young: “For the first half of my life, I was going to
church every Sunday trying to sing along.” And the singing bug continued to bite outside of the church, too: after
attending high school and college, she started singing professionally, traveling the world and working with a variety
of artists. Megan eventually came in contact with the members of Good Girl at different times in her life before the
four settled down in Philadelphia to hone their artistry, as the quartet recorded viral online videos of themselves
singing and dancing to R&B covers in their car. “Sometimes we’ve done songs that people have suggested, or mashups
of songs—but most of the time it’s been a combination of what our core fans want to hear and what we like,”
Megan explains. As for her chosen color of blue? “It found me. I’m a bit of a quiet storm.”
ARIELLE
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Ari wanted to be a dancer long before she took up singing: “When I was in first
grade, I said that I wanted to be a ballerina.” But through simple recitation of nursery rhymes, her inner talents were
revealed. “One of my cousins told me I could sing, and I was like, ‘Really?’,” she recalls. Ari’s first memory of
singing was a performance with her sister at Easter mass, and in her words, “After that, I was on a mission to be a
singer.” She hit the talent show circuit, performed in school plays and musicals, and attended Philly’s High School
for Creative and Performing Arts: “I was always immersed in the creative and performing arts, doing whatever I
could do to get better.” The formation of Good Girl crystallized her artistic ambitions (“When I met the girls,
everything finally came together”), but her aspirations are kept in check by the cool-handed personality that her
chosen color of yellow suggests: “My personality is pretty chill, so the cooler tone fits me.”
JL
“My parents say I’ve been singing and dancing since I could walk,” the South Jersey-hailing JL remembers about her
earliest forays in performing, which included rattling off side-splitting celebrity impressions at family gatherings.
“I’ve never been the shy kid—I’ve always been a big personality,” she laughs. Her father was a preacher, and would
bring JL to sing for his congregation, but through adolescence JL took her eventually calling as little more than a
flight of fancy: “I enjoyed it but I didn’t take it as a serious career.” Then, tragedy struck, as her mother passed away
from ALS and JL took inspiration from her hopes and dreams to pursue performing as a career. “I started taking my
artistry really seriously,” she recalls. “She was always my biggest supporter, so I was like, ‘Why am I not taking the
dreams we talked about and making them happen?'” Through it all and the formation of Good Girl, JL has thrived
through her own determination (“I love being a creative, because my mind’s always going”) and through the support
of her bandmates: “Bobbie has always been my biggest supporter, and I’ll always thank her for that because it
pushed me in the right direction.” Unapologetically herself, JL adopted the color red as her distinguishing trait
within the group. “It’s big and bold, and that’s my personality,” she explains. “My mom’s favorite color is red, too, so
it all comes together.”