Meet Powerhouse Girl Group: Glamour
Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter-TV personality-entrepreneur, Kandi Burruss has a new venture in the works and it has nothing to do with the Real Housewives of Atlanta or the recent Xscape reuniting announcement. Kandi has quietly been putting together a new girl group called Glamour, consisting of three beautiful and talented young ladies.
The R&B/pop trio consisting of Moriah, Lady and Kaylan semi-recently unleashed their original premiere single, “B.A.E.,” which has already been receiving largely positive reviews as it steadily makes its way up to the top of the music charts.
To add to the sheer excitement of it all, Glamour have also already made an appearance on Lee Daniels’ latest—not to mention mega-hit—Fox musical drama series, STAR.
We caught up with the ladies of Glamour to talk about their start in music, forming the group, working with Kandi Burress and much more. Meet Glamour and get familiar…
Listen To Their Debut Single “B.A.E.” As You Read:
Parlé Mag: Let’s start off with a quick introduction of each of you ladies—where are you all originally from? And what’s one unique thing you bring to the group’s dynamic?
Moriah: I’m Moriah, I’m from Atlanta, and I bring the sassiness, the girliness, to the group.
Lady: I’m Lady [Ydal], I’m 17. I’m from Paris, France, and I bring the chill [factor] to the group.
Kaylan: I’m Kaylan, I’m sixteen. I’m from Atlanta as well, and I bring a sort of edginess to the group.
Parlé Mag: What was life like for you ladies before you joined Glamour?
Moriah: I just remember life being like real regular, (begging) my parents to let me get into performing arts. Like all I remember—my sister was a competition dancer—I remember going around like, “Oh, I wish I could be on the stage with her,” stuff like that. So I was really just going to school and just being real regular, just wishing and hoping that I could get into the industry.
Kaylan: Life for me was kinda wishy washy because I was trying to be an artist, but it just wasn’t working out that way being solo ’cause things weren’t working. We were trying everything; changing my look, changing this, changing that, nothing was working. So it was just really hard to kinda like branch out on my own, but after Glamour, you know, everything just kind of went up from there.
Lady: My life before Glamour, I was a dancer. I was in a band. We kinda had a group, but then I moved to the United States and I got with Glamour, and everything changed.
Parlé Mag: Tell us a little bit about how the group came into formation? And, did you all know each other prior to joining?
Kaylan: It’s funny because we actually didn’t know each other at all. We were complete strangers, all three of us. Like, you know, we met at AGI Entertainment, which is where we train and do artist development. We were kinda there for different reasons. I wanted to come to be an actress, Moriah came to be a singer and Lady wanted to be a dancer, so we were all there for different reasons, but our manager and our creative director, Brandin Jay, they formed us together because they figured our strengths were better together than they were separate. So that’s how we formed the group, and that was formed in 2012 so we have been rockin’ for a very long time.
Parlé Mag: You’re signed to Kandi Burruss-Tucker’s label, Kandi Koated Entertainment. She’s also from one of the most popular girl groups of the ’90’s herself, Xscape—So I have to ask, how was your first time meeting and working with Kandi knowing her vast repertoire?
Moriah: It was really, really a great experience when you’re looking at someone who has been where you wanna go, like we’re in a girl group, Xscape was like THE girl group, so it’s like looking at someone that you’ve watched for years. So that was so crazy! And for her to give us our props, and just to see the potential in us, was really, really a blessing. Like we still can’t believe to this day like Kandi from Xscape is like [excited] over us! You know, it’s crazy.
Parlé Mag: Who were some of your favorite girl groups, growing up? Artist influences?
Kaylan: As far as groups, you know, we love Destiny’s Child, we love TLC, Xscape of course. As far as individually, I really look up to Rihanna. I love her so much. I love her music, her style, and she’s just really a person that I look up to as far as her artistry.
Moriah: I really look up to Beyoncé and Brandy, and Jazmine Sullivan as far as individual artists. Like Kaylan said, Destiny’s Child is our all-time favorite girl group ever. We love them so much!
Lady: I really look up to Beyoncé, as well and Usher.
Parlé Mag: How would you describe your music style?
Moriah: We are an R&B girl group, so we try to bring back a lot of those harmonies and the [era] of the nineties by incorporating the turnt-ness – I guess you can say – of the new millennium. So it’s just a mix. Everybody’s happy; you hear real vocals, as well as being able to get turnt up.
Parlé Mag: Where did inspiration for the name “GLAMOUR” come from?
Kaylan: Glamour was a name that was actually created by our creative director, Brandin Jay. You know, when people think of the word Glamour, you know, they think of the outside. They think of the beauty and the make-up and the hair, but we really wanna just split the meaning. We want it to be the inside out; like we’re from the inside. We want people to know that to be successful you can do what you want to do and still be happy, and that’s what we promote. We love inspiring young girls, just young people in general.
Parlé Mag: Do you ever feel a sense of obligation to live up to the expectations of those groups who paved the way before you?
Moriah: Well, yes, they have made it, they have paved the way definitely, and we just honor some of them by doing—like we did a [tribute] tape, a Destiny’s Child inspired [tribute] tape that’s on SoundCloud, and that’s how we really pay homage to the girl groups that we love. We play their music, and we put our own spin on it, so it’s like they paved the way but we’re gonna keep on going, so that’s how we (pay homage).
Parlé Mag: That said, let’s talk about your mixtape, The Writings on the Gram, which as mentioned above is also a tribute to Destiny’s Child. What was the process like reinventing such legendary songs?
Kaylan: It was actually very [nerve wracking] being in the studio and trying to recreate their legendary album. We really just wanted to pay homage in a way that let people know that we love them, but we wanted to add our own kinda twist to it. It was really fun just to (attempt that) feat. Our creative director did a great job, and we just really enjoyed being on the songs.
Parlé Mag: What do you hope Glamour brings to this generation of R&B and pop?
Lady: We just wanna bring the light to the darkness. Like, you know, the industry is a very hard place, and we just want to let young people know that you don’t have to do everything that you see on TV and all these different types of things. Like you can be your own self. I mean, you don’t have to cuss to make your point, you know things like that. Like we just wanna bring classiness to the world, and like just be a new example, a new type of idol, for our young people.
Parlé Mag: So, you ladies recently appeared on Lee Daniels’ STAR! I know that had to be extremely exciting. Talk about that…
Kaylan: The experience was so amazing and so surreal. We got the audition through the team of KKE. They kind of DM’d Lee Daniels us singing, and he liked it and we got to go in for an audition… and just filming with them was really amazing. I mean, the crew is amazing, the cast is amazing; they’re so fun to be around. It was an interesting experience for us, especially because we had to kinda portray sort of like mean girls – which we are not mean at all – so that was really fun to do. So, yeah, that was awesome.
Parlé Mag: Switching gears a bit, when you’re not traveling or in the studio, what’s a normal day for you all like? What do you all like to do?
Moriah: I like to read books and I like to do make-up, that’s what I like to do a lot.
Lady: I like to watch TV. And I love to read and I love doing make-up also. And I love cooking.
Kaylan: In my free time, I really just like to discover new music. Like there’s a lot of new artists out there, especially with SoundCloud. I love to discover new music. I like to read also. I’m kind of a bookworm. We’re all in school, Lady’s not, but Moriah and I, we’re still in school, so, yeah, that’s kinda what we do in our free time when we don’t have artist stuff to do.
Parlé Mag: How important is it for you guys to set an example for younger girls who may be wanting to do what you’re doing in the future?
Moriah: Really that’s the only reason we do it—of course we have passions for it and stuff, but really why do what everybody else is doing? We really want to uphold our morals ’cause it’s like what’s the point if we don’t because that’s really the only reason that we’re doing this. We’re not doing this just for us; we’re doing this for other people—to lead people away from the (bad), turn them around and say, “You don’t have to be corny to be respectful and to be yourself.” So that’s really the most important thing for us; just to uphold our morals.
Parlé Mag: What’s been one of the biggest misconceptions about Glamour that you ladies have encountered thus far?
Moriah: One of the biggest misconceptions of Glamour is they’re just gonna break up, they’re not gonna last, but that’s not what the case is with this situation. We really spend time loving each other. We have counseling sessions because really this is a marriage, so we make sure that we got our marriage right. So we learn each other. This one doesn’t like when you do this, this one likes it when you do this. So that’s how we kinda feel each other out and learn to work with each other. And that’s how we know that it’s not just gonna end because we get in an argument. And, plus, we have a foundation of—with a Christian foundation—we know it’s (strong).
Parlé Mag: What’s the best advice you’ve received from Kandi so far, or from the folks you’ve met since beginning your musical journey?
Lady: One piece of advice that Kandi has told us is that there is no “I” in Team, and that we have to work together and always be there for each other.
Kaylan: Also, we really look to her as far as her business [acumen]. Like she’s really a business woman. She has so many different streams of income, and we just really look up to that because being in this industry we don’t want to just be artists. We want to have something on the side, too.
Parlé Mag: Any upcoming projects we can know about?
Moriah: We just dropped a lot of music…so we dropped this [tribute] tape and we dropped our single, “B.A.E.,” so really we’re just promoting our single. We’re gonna promote, promote, promote to get people to know our original music, ’cause people know we do covers but this is our original song so we’re gonna really, really, really push it.
Kaylan: Hopefully you will get another tour very soon. We love touring. We actually just got off of tour, the High School Nation Tour, which was really amazing.
Parlé Mag: Any final words you ladies want to put out there?
Lady: I just want everybody to follow us on social media. I mean, we’re always on social media, so you guys know whatever’s coming up. We’re always on Snapchat. You know, we’re all Snapchatting and we’re always on Instagram… so, yeah, just follow us there; be a part of the movement!
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