<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"You might&amp;#x27;ve seen MTV&amp;#x27;s wildly popular series Making the Band, in which hip-hop luminary Diddy once assembled an all-girl supergroup, each member embodying a unique combination of beauty, talent, and star-power. From that, Danity Kane emerged and had a fairly successful string of Top 40 singles (in today&amp;#x27;s wayback machine: &amp;quot;Showstopper,&amp;quot; anyone?), as well as two gold albums. Soon thereafter, the velvet-voiced Dawn Richard struck out solo&amp;amp;#8212;enlisting the help of close collaborator and producer Druski&amp;amp;#8212;with a series of increasingly progressive mixtapes and EPs. Now, with her adventurous debut full-length Goldenheart, critics are unanimously deeming Dawn Richard a major force at the forefront of experimental R&amp;amp;B by women. We sat down and chatted about her MTB experience, her innovative sound, and taking charge, regardless of haters... But first, check out an exclusive track from Goldenheart, a total body-mover called &amp;quot;Riot.&amp;quot; Below! We were all introduced to you through Making the Band on MTV. We saw you transform within the show as Danity Kane grew. Then, you joined Diddy and made Last Train to Paris as Diddy-Dirty Money. What were the best and worst parts of that platform for you? Dawn Richard: I think it was all great. It was the platform. That&amp;#x27;s the reason I have the fanbase I have now. If people didn&amp;#x27;t see that, they wouldn&amp;#x27;t understand my progression; they had to see the struggle. It&amp;#x27;s me. I needed to be seen at my best and my worst. It was a hell of a ride, though. And being in Diddy-Dirty Money, it was amazing, so innovative. Meeting Grace Jones and working with her was beyond my wildest dreams. Do you still stay in touch with any of the girls? Dawn: Yeah! I was just talking with (ex-Danity Kane member) Shannon, who wanted to touch base about a possible reunion. I was telling her definitely, it&amp;#x27;s all about timing. We&amp;#x27;re all in a place now where we understand each other. We knew the things that happened between us. People still don&amp;#x27;t have a clue, but we love each other and we know what that was. Sometimes the outside broke us apart, but we&amp;#x27;re gonna be the ones to keep us together as friends. That&amp;#x27;s the great thing about the girls: We all had our talents long before we came to Danity Kane, and we&amp;#x27;ll have it long after. No matter what. I was watching some of those old episodes, and it was insane. Diddy would just come in and eliminate people, mid-dance move! Dawn: Who you tellin&amp;#x27;? It was so absurd. Let me tell you something. We were in the Apollo Theater. We had just made it to New York. It was like 10,000 of us in the room. We get on stage; we&amp;#x27;re standing there; we&amp;#x27;re so excited; we see Diddy and we&amp;#x27;re like, &amp;quot;This is real life!&amp;quot; First words out of his mouth: &amp;quot;If you&amp;#x27;re standing in the back, you can go. Because if you&amp;#x27;re standing in the back, you don&amp;#x27;t want it.&amp;quot; Some of these poor girls, they were just walking in and they didn&amp;#x27;t even know! They were devastated! I was so scared. I was like &amp;quot;Thank God I came in the front.&amp;quot; Usually, I&amp;#x27;m just whatever, I&amp;#x27;ll play my position and stand in the back. Horrible! It was so much talent, and he was like, bye to 80 girls before we even started. We didn&amp;#x27;t even bust a move or anything! Girls were pretty and stuff. I was shaken because there were like 30 girls who could&amp;#x27;ve killed us. Thanks for that, I guess! I was so hurt because that could&amp;#x27;ve been me. And check out the ballet-esque video for Dawn&amp;#x27;s current Goldenheart single, &amp;quot;&amp;#x27;86&amp;quot;: The image of a warrior&amp;amp;#8212;or a woman at battle&amp;amp;#8212;is a recurring theme on your album covers and in your videos. It reminds me a lot of Joan of Arc. Who are some strong women you look to for inspiration? Dawn: Joan of Arc and Tilda Swinton have kind of been my fashion muses for this project, actually. I love androgyny. Hard lines, hard edges, mixed with femininity and making that beautiful. I&amp;#x27;m an androgynous character, and I feel like that&amp;#x27;s something people are afraid of. I love any old stories of a woman who had to be amongst men. She would often have to cut her hair to show she was serious about the message she was trying to portray. And of course, things have changed: women are more powerful and balanced with men than ever, but sometimes, I think the message of trying to get something different across gets lost in the traditional R&amp;amp;B format. It&amp;#x27;s not always about a club or someone&amp;#x27;s butt shaking. Which is fine! I&amp;#x27;m trying to shake my butt too! I&amp;#x27;m from New Orleans, I love a butt shake. But I still think there&amp;#x27;s a message to relate because I came from Making the Band. People saw my journey. I had to come honest, or it would&amp;#x27;ve been like, &amp;quot;Well why are you telling us something we&amp;#x27;ve already been through?&amp;quot; Other women I look up to: the Cyndi Laupers of the world, the one-and-only Grace Jones. Bjork. Kelis, who started the wave for this generation of eccentric black girls. I love women who aren&amp;#x27;t afraid of giving a powerful message to the world. In the song &amp;quot;Warfaire&amp;quot; on Goldenheart, you talk about the internal doubts you struggle with daily, which is quite powerful. Why did you feel the need to express that? Dawn: Because it&amp;#x27;s true! I wake up and read comments sometimes and it&amp;#x27;s like: &amp;quot;She&amp;#x27;s not cute!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The it-factor is so not there.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;She&amp;#x27;s boring!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;What&amp;#x27;s her point?&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s frustrating when you feel like you have a message to get out and people just judge you regardless. That just needs to be faced. I&amp;#x27;m not the only person going through that. It&amp;#x27;s the worst when you have something positive to share and it&amp;#x27;s special and unique. We get discouraged sometimes when people look at surface only and neglect the message. This is for you. The same people neglecting and hating are the ones going through issues in their own lives, and they&amp;#x27;re scared to face that. That&amp;#x27;s why the first lyric is &amp;quot;If a mirror showed your heart, pieces would fall from your guard.&amp;quot; We&amp;#x27;re so easy to judge, but if you put the magnifying glass on yourself, you&amp;#x27;d realize that someone is saying, &amp;quot;You aren&amp;#x27;t. You&amp;#x27;re horrible.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s a vicious cycle. The song talks a lot of smack, but in a pretty way. Goldenheart is just the first album in a trilogy you&amp;#x27;ve planned for this year. What&amp;#x27;s can people expect to hear for the next two, BlackHeart and RedemptionHeart? Dawn: I&amp;#x27;ve been listening to lots of Annie Lennox records. So BlackHeart is the fall, so to speak. I remember Annie just having a heavier sound. I want to play with the idea of hitting bottom, but I don&amp;#x27;t want it to be too dark. Like Goldenheart is the moment when, say, you start a new job, and you&amp;#x27;re like, &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m gonna change things!&amp;quot; And your boss is like, &amp;quot;No, you&amp;#x27;re gonna get coffee.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s the naivete of life. BlackHeart explores a harsher reality of remembering how you got your battle scars, so I want it to sound heavy. RedemptionHeart is like the moment in The Matrix where Zion is praise-dancing on the mountain. And you&amp;#x27;re so happy, you&amp;#x27;re screaming, &amp;quot;We made it! I&amp;#x27;m now in my own office, I&amp;#x27;m actually called something now! I&amp;#x27;m in charge.&amp;quot; What do y&amp;#x27;all think of Dawn Richard? Who&amp;#x27;s looking forward to hearing more from her? Photos by: Dimitry Loiseau/dimitryl.com"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/01/dawn-richard>