Whatever Happened to: Changing Faces

Since there has been a lack of new music being released (sorry, I don’t count The-Dream as “music”) I decided to dig in my collection and reminisce about some of my favorite forgotten artists.

Back in the mid 90s, you could separate the good R&B acts into two categories – the megastars like TLC, Toni Braxton, even Brandy, and then there were the lesser stars, who were nearly as good but lacked the chart-busting pedigree of their peers. Changing Faces was among those artists.

For all the young’ns out there, just picture an R&B version of Mary Mary.

Their first big song was back in ’94 — “Stroke You Up” from their self-titled debut. I remember the video was very 90s – Cassandra and Charisse standing around in a raggedy house with R. Kelly creepily saying “I don’t miiiiiiiind.” I used to think it was something going on with those three – but we now know they were waaay too old for Kelly. As popular as “Stroke You Up” was, I preferred “Foolin Around,” another song from the Pied Pedophile.

Can’t you see why I thought something was up with them and Kells? Too much stroking and fooling around going on.

In ’97, they dropped their second album All Day, All Night, and it was pretty good. That featured another Kelly song, ethnically entitled “G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T.” Ladies LOVED that song.

Ladies love any song that disses a no-good man.

The girls vanished for a few years and popped up at the end of 2000 with Visit Me. Oh, but the world of music was a much different place by then.

Have you ever been to a club and seen a person who, while very attractive, just looks way too old for the scene? That was their dilemma. Look at ’em sitting on the side of that volcano in their draws – they were definitely trying to appeal to the younger set. I loved their track “That Other Woman” and the album was decent enough, but everyone was too distracted by Destiny’s Child and Aaliyah to notice.

And speaking of Aaliyah, the album cut “Come Over” was the EXACT SAME SONG Aaliyah released posthumously from her I Care 4 U album. It was identical, down to the ad-libs. I never got the story on that.

And that was that for Changing Faces.

I read in a magazine a few years back that one of the girls was performing at local venues. I can’t remember which one, and y’all don’t pay me enough to dig around and check.

Should they come back?: Hey, Arruh, what do you think about a Changing Faces comeback?

Kelly: “I don’t miiiiiind.”

I agree. I doubt they could sell more than 50 copies but as long as they don’t start using vocoders I’d check ’em out.