Danity Kane (King-mag.com April 2007)

Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls

The ladies of Danity Kane are probably the finest girl group out right now, which explains all the male groupies and why they all want to be in KING like their girl D.Woods.

MTV’s Making the Band series produced Danity Kane, Diddy’s foray into the pop world. The sexy quintent of Dawn, Aubrey, Andrea, D. Woods, and Shannon are as different as they are fine. With the group’s self-entitled debut album certified platinum, and touring with Christina Aguilera, the ladies are elevating beyond eye candy towards pop princesses. But who’s to say they can’t be both? - Story by N’neka Hite

King-mag.com: So what’s life like on tour for you ladies?
Dawn: The tour is fantastic, we’re really excited. We’ve gotten really great responses from the crowd and it’s just getting better and better.

That’s such a PC answer. Tell us the good stuff. Like, do male groupies have a shot with any of you?
Dawn: It’s funny because when you in it—you don’t think guys would be groupies. You get the little cute romantic things [or] you get the harsher things like, ‘Please girl let me touch yo booty.’ The grabbing thing is on and poppin’.

Sounds like those boys need a woman in their life.
Aubrey: Guys and girls. I got Dawn into trouble because this one woman was like way too annoying snapping pictures of us like a mile a minute. She was touching us and then she’s like, “who are you guys?” I was like you’ve been taking pictures of us all night and you don’t know who we are? So I told her that we were all from HBO’s Real Sex.
Dawn: And of course she comes by me and starts to try to feel me up. Not hot!

King-mag.com: Whew, it sounds like it’s going down at the DK after sets. Shannon, how do you deal with the groupies, being married and all?
Shannon: I go out with my girls, we go out and we have fun together. When am I going to be able to do this again, you know?

Speaking of DK doing big things, what do you ladies think about D. Woods’ being featured solo in the new issue of King, I can hear the breakup rumors already.
Shannon: There was break-up rumors sparked the day we were made as a band, you’re never going to ever overcome that. People are going to have their opinions. The beautiful thing about this group is that we’re so diverse, and so different in our looks and in our cultures that we want to span out. If each of us gets things specifically offered to us, the group is always really supportive of that. It doesn’t matter if it’s for one, two, three, four, or five; it’s getting the groups name out there. D. Woods is known because of Danity Kane.

Dawn: I think it’s beautiful for her to represent for the group. I think its really exciting and I cant wait to see the spread and I cant wait to see everybody’s faces when they see how gorgeous she really is, I mean, she’s a beautiful girl. I can’t wait for the day that the entire group can shoot.
Aubrey: For real. Let’s get the white girls on the cover of KING.

Whoa now, baby steps. I’m sure one day KING will be down to have a five-some with you girls. D. Woods, were you having a good time even though it was just you?
D. Woods: I had a good time. We got done really quickly. The photographer [and] I worked together really well. I think he was going for more like a high fashion like artsy type of shoot, and I’m a artsy type of girl so it just came together really well.

So no one gets jealous of seeing one group member by herself?
Shannon: You know, we want ‘Drea to be on the cover of Latina magazine – she represents that for us. We want Dawn to be on KING. You know, and I—and Shannon will be in Good Housekeeping. We support each other in doing that, cause that’s what makes this group so unique because of the fact that we can do that; and also if KING Magazine wants D and that’s who they want, none of us in the group ever want to take away the opportunity from another girl and if it were offered to us then we all would do it.

Skateboards2Scrapers (January 2007 AHH.com)

Skateboards 2 Scrapers

Artist: The Pack
Title: Skateboards 2 Scrapers
Rating:
Reviewed by: Ms. Hite



The New West is on the brink of resurrection and the Bay Area is the main driving force behind all the noise. In the sticky green city of Berkley there were four teens creepin' on a come up when veteran rapper and Bay Area King, Too Short got wind of the group's rhythmic flows and mesmerizing beats. He took no time making them official. The Pack AKA The Wolf Pack morphed into the cyber world via Myspace with their cult classic "Vans." The song seeped into local nightspots and Hip-Hop heads soaked it up. With its super syrupy beat and melodic catchy flow, the group's producer Young L cooked up a recipe for success. After 50,000 myspace hits, Lil Uno, Young L, Lil B, and Stunna found a spot on Hip-Hop's map and in turn have released Skateboards 2 Scrapers.

Listening to the Pack's debut effort one recognizes right away that track-to-track these heads value their skateboards and Vans like a gangster rapper edifies his chronic. With "Vans" the group seemed destined to make noise in the world of new Hip-Pop, but Skateboards 2 Scrapers does little to live up to the single's hype. After the hit single passes the following tracks are doused with repeated references to the age old shoe boasting nothing more than a reinvented style that we’ve seen time and time again. The Pack took an entire EP to make it known that they don’t respect Nikes and if you do you’re not "cool." The synopsis of the groups core focus is women, shoes, and skateboards. Which makes for a youthfully boring listen.

The lyrics definitely have an age stamp on them, with songs like "Ride My Bike" loosely based on sex you begin to question whether or not they should be speaking on doing the grown folk. They also show their being influenced by the material side of Hip-Hop on the bumpinh "Shinin'," spitting, "B*tch I'm shinin'/Somebody's watchin' me/Wrist color piss, I'm stuntin' in this bitch/I’m single handcuff your bitch."

The Pack does attempt to offer spice and variety in their sound. With the Luke-like track "Candy," they prepare the heavily saturated Dirty South market for a taste of the new West sound that dares to go against the gangster rap norm. They flow hard on the unique bass driven beat and try hard to offer the listener something new.

While none of the tracks measure up to the uniqueness of Young L’s “Vans,” the remix featuring Too Short brings the noise, maybe just a bit too late. The biggest challenge in accepting The Pack as true Hip-Hop essentials would be the ability to get used to the each members flow. This won't prove to be much of a challenge because the tracks tend to sound so similar. All and all Skateboards 2 Scrapers does offer The Pack plenty of room for improvement.