Source: Paul Archuleta / Getty
The narrative around the dismantling of EnVogue has always been a bit of a mystery. What has been said it that Dawn was no longer happy and she kind of threw off the original dynamic and stepped away from what appeared to be a successful tenure with one of the most talented girl groups of all time.
But that was back in the 90’s when it wasn’t clear for a celebrity to articulate every last one of their intentions.
Now, in 2021, Robinson has a more direct path to communicate a message, explain herself and even put some rumors to rest.
Recently, in an interview with the Jasmine Brand, she did just that.
Robinson said she left the group because they weren’t being fairly compensated for their efforts.
“Our producer was kind enough to let us write on the first album. Cindy was actually talking to MC Hammer and told him we weren’t making money. That’s when everything changed. MC Hammer was like, ‘You guys are the biggest things on the charts right now and you’re making two cents a record, there’s something wrong with this picture. So he paid for us—after we came back from overseas—he paid for us to go to his attorney. He paid for the whole day. Take your contracts and you guys ask questions. Because the fact that we were so big on the charts but making so little money, it blew him away.
Once our producer found that out, that we had seen MC Hammer’s attorney, he wasn’t having it. He was pissed off. But it’s like we have to find out what’s going on with our contracts ourselves. So you feel betrayed? We’re betrayed. We should be making a lot more money than 2 cents a record.
Your first deal, you don’t have the leverage to ask for what you want or what you think you deserve. So you take what you can get and what they give you. But after you go platinum, all that goes out the window. Now you’ve proven yourself as an artist. You have the right to ask for what you think you deserve. We deserved a lot more.
When Denny found out we went to MC Hammer’s attorney, he was pissed and said, ‘You guys aren’t going to write on the second album. I’m revoking your royalties.’ He had the right to distribute our royalties the way he wanted to at that point. We had to sign an addendum. Oh yeah, it was bad. But we didn’t see that anything was wrong with it. It’s almost like the slave owner mentality. We didn’t have anything before this so it was like, we’re just going to do what they say.
As things went along, I started asking questions, ‘Where’s the money.’”
Eventually, Dawn had enough. And in 1997 she left En Vogue—though she wasn’t able to fully explain the reason why.
“Back in the day, when I first left En Vogue in ’97, there was no social media. And I mean none. If you had a publicist, you had to pay a lot of money. One publicist I had at one point…I paid her $5,000. When I paid her that $5,000, I was shocked. I said, ‘You’re not doing enough work in month for $5,000.’ So I couldn’t afford to keep her. And she really couldn’t do much at that time.
And like I said we were getting paid 2 cents a record so I didn’t have the money to use the platforms that were available at that time to speak my truth. Now, with all the platforms today, I’m telling all of my truth.
I was also told by my team, ‘Dawn, wait until you have a new record out. Wait until you have a few hits under your belt, then you can tell your story. So, I kind of kept it to myself.’
Cindy, Terry, and Maxine were out there saying—Maxine admitted this. She was like, ‘Dawn, we told the press that you were being a diva, that you left En Vogue because you were being a diva.’
I’m like, ‘Umm, when I left En Vogue, I did another group. So, if I was being a diva, why would I do another group? If I was being a diva, I’d be on my own.’ I don’t know why you lied to the press. She was like, ‘We were angry at you.’ I was like, ‘Why were you angry at me? ‘ I was only trying to make sure we got our just due. I wasn’t speaking for just Dawn Robinson personally. I was speaking for the whole group to make more two cents a freakin record. You guys should have had my back because I was saying the right thing. We’re doing the bulk of the work and we’re not making the lion’s share of the money. And that didn’t make any sense to me.”
You can watch these portions of Dawn’s interview in the videos below.
