Billboard Cover: Fifth Harmony on Surviving Pop-Star Fame and 'Finally Having a Damn Voice'
Fifth Harmony photographed March 30 at Quixote Studios in Los Angeles.
Styling by Zoe Costello. Fashion editor: Shannon Adducci. Hansen wears
a
Melissa Odabash bodysuit. Hernandez wears a Norma Kamali bodysuit.
Cabello wears a Fleur du Mal bodysuit. Kordei wears a Lisa Marie
Fernandez maillot. Jauregui wears a Kamalikulture x Norma Kamali
bodysuit.
Girl groups were supposed to have been kaput
when 'The X Factor' threw together five young women sharing little more
than hard-knock childhoods and inexhaustible zest.
At 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday in late March, the face of sisterhood is not
made up with bold hues, framed by perfect tendrils of teased hair or
complemented by faux furs and glittery fabric. Here in the living
room-like cafe of a boutique hotel on a quiet street in West Hollywood,
the women of
Fifth Harmony
gather in various states of self-styled and still-sleepy. Despite
living out of suitcases for much of the past two years, when they're
with each other, they seem at home. And as confident as their photo
shoots would have you believe.
Dinah Jane Hansen, who is 18 and wears a baseball cap that reads "HOT SAUCE" and a crewneck sporting
2Pac's
face, sums up the group's current mood by quoting her hero, UFC champ
Ronda Rousey:
"I'm not a do-nothing bitch!" It's a message the others
are eager to get behind as they enter what may prove to be the most
hard-fought phase of their collective career. "We finally have a damn
voice," says Hansen. "We feel like actual artists. We were little babies
in the beginning. Now we're becoming big girls."
Dinah Jane Hansen wears a ThePerfext coat, Onia dress, Georg Jensen necklace and Freda Salvador shoes.
That's a handy narrative as Fifth Harmony prepares to release its second album,
7/27,
on May 27 through Epic and Syco. But it happens to be true. The lead
single, "Work From Home," is the first girl group song to break into the
top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in eight years. (The last one: "When I
Grow Up" by
The Pussycat Dolls, which hit No. 9 in July 2008.) It's a pop-R&B confection that siphons off the same tropically tinted EDM pool that made
Justin Bieber a grown-person concern, and it's the group's steamiest song too, with MC
Ty Dolla Sign promising to "put in overtime on your body." The album's other guests include
Missy Elliott -- on would-be "Uptown Funk!" sequel "Not That Kinda Girl" -- and rap crooner
Fetty Wap, over the bubbly reggae-trap of "All in My Head."
"I did the song because my 11-year-old daughter always plays them,"
says Ty Dolla Sign, 31, over the phone from Europe. "But the other night
on tour out here, we had all these girls in the hotel room. Usually we
put on
Future or something more turnt, but they all just wanted to hear Fifth Harmony. That's the first time that ever happened."
Fifth
Harmony's very existence is an anomaly in 2016. Boy bands have it
relatively easy -- a seemingly endless supply of grade-school and
tweenage girls feasting at the smorgasbord of fantasy boyfriends branded
according to personality: the bad boy, the saint, the jokester, the
enigma. 5H's most recent forebears were all founded in the 1990s:
Destiny's Child,
TLC,
Spice Girls and
The Pussycat Dolls. And the group's British peers
Little Mix have yet to land an international hit.
5H advanced to the finals of The X Factor in 2012.Ray Mickshaw/FOX
Meanwhile, 5H's 2015 debut album,
Reflection,
bowed at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and its biggest song, "Worth It,"
only just fell out of the Hot 100, after a No. 12 peak, in November
2015. The group's other accomplishments include having Barbies made in
their own non-blonde images, performing at the White House (twice)
after name-checking Michelle Obama in 2014 female empowerment anthem
"Bo$$," teaming with
Taylor Swift for a live version of "Worth It" on Swift's 1989 Tour, a
Sesame Street cameo and kicking off April's WrestleMania 32 with a solemn rendition of "America the Beautiful."
The new album's title,
7/27, is a nod to the date, in 2012, that these five went from being complete strangers to a pop powerhouse. Like
One Direction before them, each teen came to
The X Factor
seeking solo stardom, washed out of the preshow boot camp and wound up
in an arranged group. If you think it's a bit soon for that kind of
nostalgia, Fifth Harmony sure doesn't. When I express my skepticism, I
get a chorus of dissent: five voices fervently cooing "Noooo" and
"Yeeeears."
Camila Cabello, 19, answers for the group with the utmost sincerity:
"That's a really long time in a young person's life." SpongeBob
SquarePants peeks from the gap between her Nike sneakers and black
leggings -- socks at perfect odds with her big pearl earrings. "This is
our rebirth," says Lauren Jauregui, 19, in loosely laced black leather
combat boots and a paisley summer dress. "Also, 727 is a jet," she adds
with mock cockiness, "and we're about to take flight, know what I
mean?" She gets a bunch of "Ayyyys!" in return. They're always laughing
at each other's jokes, building each other up.
"By design, it shouldn't work," says Epic Records chairman/CEO Antonio "L.A." Reid, 59. As an
X Factor
judge, he and show creator Simon Cowell assembled 5H by scattering
photo cards of contestants on a table and eyeballing different
arrangements. "They found out in front of a live audience they were
going to be an actual band, and now they're challenged to be creative,
be competitive and keep a sense of humor? I'm surprised they haven't
cracked up! They should be nuts by now. I would be."
Normani Kordei's upbringing sounds all the themes common to the girls'
backstories: precocious talent, faith, struggle and empowerment. Raised
in New Orleans, she was singing and dancing by age 4. Then Hurricane
Katrina hit. Her family fled to Houston, where she would compete in
pageants, picturing herself as
Beyoncé to overcome her shyness. She was a Miss Texas Outstanding Teen finalist when she learned of
X Factor's
Austin tryouts. "I was frightened," says Kordei, who is 19 and sporting
a wide-necked black tee over jean shorts. "I would've rather not
auditioned than risk failing, but my mom encouraged me to do it to
better myself. I took that leap, I prayed, and everything worked out."
Cabello's mom brought her to Miami from Cuba when she was 6 with a
few hundred bucks and the clothes on their backs. Jauregui is from
Miami, too, and says she "was taught to be an independent woman" at the
all-girls Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart. Hansen grew up in Santa
Ana, Calif., with 23 relatives in a four-bedroom house. Ally Brooke
Hernandez, 22, was home-schooled in San Antonio, so she could look after
her mother, who has severe scoliosis. She's wearing the silver purity
ring her mom gave her when she turned 18, shortly before she auditioned
-- or, as she puts it, "When I was ripped out of the house and thrown
into
X Factor."
As Cowell, 56, recalls, "It was
incredible how quickly they jelled, had each other's backs and
understood their roles. It was the same with One Direction. I've seen
idiot managers [in other situations] try to control everything. With a
group like that, you respect their talent and let them lead you." No
momagers here: Maverick's Larry Rudolph (
Britney Spears) and Dan Dymtrow manage the group.
Hernandez is usually the group's rock, but she chokes up immediately
when it's her turn. She keeps the details vague, but cites "awful mental
health situations" and "pain on a lot of levels." Jauregui, the most
outspoken of the women, connects it all to "this industry": "They sell
you this present of rainbows and butterflies, and as a 16-year-old
that's what I bought. It's why I did
X Factor and why I ended
up in a group. But then you're working so hard, so young. [Meanwhile] my
friends are in college, telling me about their days and what they're
studying. You're having to put on a smile on a red carpet. It's like,
'Who am I? Am I for myself or for this?' " (The women aren't currently
engaged in any academic pursuits, although eventually they would like to
further their educations.)
It's when she gets to her high point
that Jauregui loses it. "I rekindled a friendship I hadn't had in a
long time and I was reminded" -- she begins to sob -- "of all the parts
of me that had left. I was like, 'Wow, I love to paint and to write, and
to be outside' ... sorry," she murmurs.
"I love touring, but the
schedule traumatized me," says Hansen bitterly. "I was like, 'What kind
of job are we doing?' I watched my great-grandmother be buried on
FaceTime. We're all so family-oriented, and we've all lost people on the
road."
In the past four months, Kordei has experienced three
deaths. The last one is very fresh -- eight days ago, her dancer friend
Jehlan Vaughn, 20, was shot dead in his Houston home. We actually delay
our second meeting so she can fly back for a funeral. "I'm in the
process of getting to my high point," she says through glassy eyes, as
Hernandez wraps an arm around her.
"What's special is we've got four other girls willing to go through
it," says Hansen. When Jauregui's grandmother died -- on the same day
Reflection was released -- they insisted she skip promo and fly to Florida straightaway.
"You guys are the best," says Jauregui blearily. "You literally saved my life."
Two
weeks later in Beverly Hills, the girls are giddy. They're flitting
around a self-serve frozen yogurt shop, composing low-fat masterpieces.
Cabello walks by squeezing a gummy cube. "I did not know that this is
the essence of mochi," she says to no one in particular. Jauregui throws
in an F-bomb to make her flavor sound edgier: "F--ing 'birthday
cake.' " She's also toting a worn copy of Oscar Wilde's
The Happy Prince under her arm. Our hang quickly becomes a salon on current issues.
Cabello is thrilled about Cuba opening up: "I went back four years ago to visit my grandma. I was obsessed with
Justin Bieber
and no one there had any idea who that was. Information is so
controlled. My mom and I cried watching [President] Obama's [Havana]
speech."
She and the others also are excited about the
presidential election and being able to vote for the first time -- even
if they're not of one mind on the candidates.
"Hillary!" Kordei
stage-whispers while throwing up a fist, adding that Clinton is
"educated, qualified and has so much experience. I don't think she could
do any wrong, honestly."
Jauregui twists her face up. "She's a
politician," she says dismissively. "But I do think she's very skilled.
Bernie [Sanders] has incredible policies that are idealistic,
obviously, but seeing as Congress will oppose him anyway, we could
actually get a lot done progressively."
Are they surprised by Donald Trump's success?
"Incredibly,
yes," says Jauregui. "It's such a shame so many Americans are rallying
behind ignorance. It speaks volumes to the state of education in our
country and the mentality of the Republican Party." Hansen isn't so
sure. "It could go both ways," she says hesitantly. "If Trump becomes
president, he wouldn't be afraid to step on toes. And he'll be feared
by the world." Jauregui looks horrified, Kordei baffled. Cabello shrugs
and cheerily says, "Politics! Moving on!"
They are united on the subject of gender, though, broaching chart
wins for female musicians, the Emma Watson-backed HeForShe campaign and
sexual assault statistics. They also have an earful for
Kanye West and his recent "I made that bitch famous" lyric about Swift.
"I
spoke to [Swift] and she did not know he was going to say that," says
Cabello. "Taking credit for her success and then saying 'you owe me sex
for that'? Disgusting."
The women are less chatty when it comes
to romance. "We try to keep that little piece to ourselves because we
share so much," says Hansen. "So ... we're all single." When Kordei
adds, "I really am single," the room explodes in laughter. It's tough
for them to carve out much they can call their own. They had apartments
in Los Angeles for a month while making
7/27, but otherwise
they live out of hotels, even in Los Angeles, where they spend most of
their non-touring time. Their possessions and their pets are back in
their hometowns with family.
Whether you catch the members of 5H on a good day or a bad one, they're
clearly straining to prove to the world, and to themselves, that they
have some say in their own damn lives. But for now, writing music
remains just a hobby. "We all have our own sessions," says Hansen. When
Jauregui adds, "That's something we love to do..." Kordei finishes the
thought: "...in our spare time."
Cabello puts it more bluntly: "Nobody
wrote on this album." She has taken the biggest step toward
independence, recording a duet with
Shawn Mendes ("I
Know What You Did Last Summer," which peaked at No. 20 on the Hot 100)
and, in a recent Q&A at Twitter HQ, saying, "I have this thing
called a MIDI keyboard," when asked to describe her most prized
possession. (Like
Zayn Malik,
she also is an avowed introvert, spending her downtime at the Billboard
photo shoot sitting in corners or powwowing with her mom.)
Whatever
might be on the horizon in terms of solo careers, these five are deeply
loyal and caring when it comes to one another. Ask Reid what's most
surprising about Fifth Harmony and he'll say, "The sisterhood. The
closeness." Ask Cowell and he'll tell you something else: "That they
were patient." How much longer will that last?
The women of 5H
acknowledge that the answer isn't "forever."
"It has been an
incredible journey, and it'll continue as long as it can," says
Jauregui. "But this will be that chapter that got us wherever we needed
to go. We're learning the business, meeting people we need to know,
getting knowledgeable about our craft. This is basically us being in
college for our majors."
And as their careers together prove, a lot can happen in four years.
