In order to make the label happy, I had to deliver several versions of a single, including one that was up-tempo and simple, scrubbed of all ad-libs and “urban inflections.” In order to make myself happy and make sure a song I liked could work for the club kids (who have always given me life), I set aside time to make remixes, sometimes several on one song. I often did complete rewrites and all-new vocal tracks rather than recycling from the original—especially when I worked with David Morales. We would completely re-envision a song. We often worked late at night, when I could steal a moment for myself. David would come to the studio, and I’d tell him he could do whatever he wanted with the song. I’d have a couple splashes of wine, and we would just go wherever the spirit took us—which were almost always high-energy dance tracks with big, brand-new vocals. It was one way I found liberation while locked up in Sing Sing.
I had a remix idea for “Always Be My Baby” and asked JD to bring Xscape and a big, exciting young female rapper out of Chicago named Da Brat who had a hit record, “Funkdafied,” that JD had produced, to my studio. Knowing how smoothly JD and I worked together, I calculated that we could bang out a remix and shoot a cool docu-style video all in the same session. It was an efficient move. It was a very big feat to secure a hit record; you had to be strategic in your creative choices. We chose “Tell Me If You Still Care” by the S.O.S. Band as the sample, thinking that it would be palatable for a crossover audience, and then having Da Brat rap on it would make it appealing for a hip-hop audience.
JD was down. I knew how I wanted the remix to sound, with Supremes-style backgrounds. I had to redo all the vocals ’cause it was in a different key. But because Jermaine was so adept in the studio and so in tune with all of our styles, I knew he could bring it all together. The session was set—So So Def was coming to Sing Sing.
As you approach the grounds of Sing Sing, a security station sits to the right, obscured by trees. Inside were multiple screens connected to all the cameras throughout the house and on the property. JD made his way up the long driveway toward the enormous house that rose like a castle from a thick, fluffy blanket of glistening snow. He wasn’t prepared for such grandeur. I didn’t realize the rare air I was orbiting in until I caught that moment of recognition on JD’s face when he stepped out of the car. The scale and opulence of the mansion suggested not simply “music star” but the next stratosphere. Sing Sing was supersized. It was the physical representation of the combined power and influence of me and Tommy, a music-industry power couple. And in that moment, we were the music-industry power couple. When he got to the massive front door, Jermaine looked like Richard Pryor in The Wiz. Honestly, the whole lot of us looked like a group of children playing in a fairy-tale kingdom. But in actuality it was more like visiting day “upstate.” The joy was temporary.
It was refreshing and a much-welcomed reprieve to have a group of fresh artists at my house to create something we would love and respect. These were my peers, steeped in hip-hop music and culture—and we were down to make a hit. Though we were all very young, collectively we were worth hundreds of millions of dollars in record sales. But once you walked through the gates of Sing Sing, that didn’t mean much. We were now all under surveillance. JD, Xscape, and Da Brat took note of the excessive presence of bodyguards and security, but it wasn’t immediately clear to them exactly who or what they were guarding.
Jermaine was so focused and serious, he went straight to the studio to get acclimated and organized. He sat at the console, in full command, like the captain of a spaceship. While he worked on the beat, the girls from Xscape and I vibed and talked through the mechanics of the background vocals. It was probably the first time I ever had five women close to my age at my house. Xscape was Kandi Burruss, Tameka “Tiny” Cottle, and Tamika and LaTocha Scott. With their elaborate Atlanta hairstyles, glossy lips, and oversized sportswear, they were super fly and fully captured the glamorous-yet-chill look of women in hip-hop during those years. Their sound and style was exactly the right vibe for the remix and video. I wanted us all to look easy and real, not manipulated by “development executives.”
From the studio you could see the massive French windows, which led to the indoor pool area with its museumlike high ceilings. On clear days the reflection of clouds would float on the water’s surface from the outdoor pool, which was beyond the walls. From the outdoor pool you could see the pond, and from there, on a clear night, you could catch the twinkling lights of Manhattan way in the distance. We hung out in the marble room with the pool, playing cards, drinking, cracking jokes—almost like actual girlfriends.
And then there was Da Brat. Her energy was irresistible; I adored her, instantly. I was very reserved around new people back then. I had become shy, and it took me a long time to trust (it still does), but Brat broke right through the wall of my fearful past, on day one. We had kindred, childlike
