FLO Live

You want a sign of FLO's stratospheric trajectory? Since the release of the British girl group’s debut single Cardboard Box in March 2022, FLO have made history by becoming the first group to ever win Radio 1’s BBC Sound of 2023 and the BRIT Rising Star Award 2023. Having been the first group to ever win the BRIT Rising Star, FLO now follow in the footsteps of global superstars including Adele, Sam Smith and Celeste who all started their career with both accolades. Believing in their “vision from day one”, FLO have become the most hotly tipped British music act of the year, nominated for Best Newcomer at the MOBOs where they made their sublime debut UK TV Awards performance, as well as winning cult platform No Signal’s Yearbook Top Of The Class accolade, breaking records with thousands of votes. Not only that, but January 2023 started with the release of the “Hide & Seek Remix”, a collaboration with Britain’s biggest rapper Stormzy for his #1 album, after he tweeted “ready when you are girls” following a Capital XTRA video of the group speaking about their dream UK collaboration. Stormzy sent a video message to FLO about the collaboration and also told Stella, Renée and Jorja the incredible news that they had won the BBC Sound Of 2023.
Not only is Stormzy is a fan of the UK’s most exciting new girl group, but R&B and hip-hop luminaries such as Brandy, JoJo, SZA, Victoria Monét and Missy Elliott, as well as girl group royalty - none other than Destiny’s Child’s Kelly Rowland and Sugababes - have all co-signed FLO, helping Cardboard Box become the biggest girl group opening statement in over a decade, with 40m global streams, and their debut EP “The Lead” has reached 100M streams to date. But at the heart of FLO are three ambitious young black women - 20 year-old Renée and 21 year olds Jorja and Stella - whose immaculate three part harmonies, contemporary take on 00s R&B and era-defining music videos have connected with hundreds of thousands of R&B fans globally. From TLC's No Scrubs to Jazmine Sullivan's Pick Up Your Feelings via Destiny's Child's Say My Name, R&B is littered with tart kiss offs to downbeat exes. With FLO’s extraordinary debut single, London-based girl group FLO have taken their rightful place in that lineage. “Imma put your shit in a cardboard box,” they harmonise angelically over a typically delicious MNEK production that fuses early 00s R&B with low slung dancehall flavours. “Never liked your momma so I guess she's blocked,” they continue, reducing a cheating no-mark to tears as they pack his “jeans next to the dreams you sold me”. Ouch. It remains a startling introduction to a band whose ethos is to fuse the classic old school R&B they still obsess over – “Mariah, Brandy, Whitney, Mary, Aaliyah – do you want me to go on?” asks Jorja rhetorically – with contemporary singers like the aforementioned Sullivan, as well as H.E.R, Frank Ocean and SZA. Cardboard Box’s success, which also includes being playlisted on BBC 1Xtra, a nomination for the Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize, and winning Spotify’s fan-voted Who We Be “Song of the Summer” (beating off stiff competition from Burna Boy and Drake), FLO gave their legions of new fans a sublime 5-track EP straight off the bat and leading the way, with The Lead. Featuring the sleek, Timbaland-esque banger Immature, with an exquisite video that has amassed over 1.3m views and an incredible stripped back session for VEVO DSCVR reaching 400k, to the scorching carefree anthem Summertime, about the romance of female friendship. The official video for Summertime, which was their “favourite yet,” serves as more evidence of FLO’s magnetic chemistry and unbreakable bond. The Lead won critical praise across the board, hailed by the likes of The Guardian, i-D, Dazed and Pitchfork (“worthy heirs to the millennium girl group legacy”), a nomination for “Female Artist Of The Year” at the GRM Daily Rated Awards 2022, alongside Little Simz, Mahalia and Cleo Sol, as well as being nominated for “Best New Artist of 2022’ at the inaugural GUAP Gala. “There hasn't been a girl group in the market for so long, especially an R&B girl group,” says Renée.