Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to ENV. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

ENV, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

No lie, sometimes, we do feel this way and it’s unfortunate. People have opinions and opinions are great, when they are helping to better and elevate you–that also comes from studying and understanding. Opinions are not so great when they are coming from somewhere surface level without understanding, you don’t understand us. Sometimes it’s like, “did you try to get to know us, our art, our message at all? or are you just talking out of your neck”? There have been so many times where we feel we have gotten the short end of the stick or not getting the recognition for the things we feel we work hard for, simply because we feel misunderstood AND mis-characterized. Don’t get us wrong, we do what we do because love it and it’s not solely for recognition but you know, its kind of annoying when someone who is half doing something is getting recognized for doing the bare minimum. We just take it as people just don’t know us yet or they don’t know how much potential and talent we truly have. We just remain positive and know that our time is coming where we will be understood!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We are ENV, an R&B girl group from Jackson, MS. We are an exhilarating trio — Big Trouble, Fait and Essence. We formed our group in high school, so you know, we’ve been friends, sisters forever! We all had a love for singing, dancing and performing and we had, and still have, a major love for girl groups so, we decided to form one of our own. What’s better than doing what you love with who you love?!

ENV means so much to us because, growing up and even in today’s climate, there aren’t any girl groups (that we know of) that look like us, all brown skinned, beautiful Black women. You know there has been girl groups with different races/ethnicites, the same race/ethnicities but different skin tones or all black girl groups with different shades and tones. And don’t get us wrong, ALL if those thing are important and awesome and having representation is important, so with that, we want to be the face for the brown skinned black girl groups!We wanna say the ony girl groups we can think of where all of the ladies were the same shade was En Vogue, and we adore them.

We make music for people to feel empowered by and to know that being authentically you is powerful and what this world needs! In this day and age, everyone feels like they have to be perfect, portraying this perfect aesthetic on IG, perfect pictures, living a perfect life an that’s just not reality! BEING YOU UN-APOLOGETICALLY is what we need! We, of course, also make music for the gworls (girls) to empower them to know, you are the prize, you are that girl, you are worthy of what you deserve, you are strong enough to leave that toxic man alone (while also, it’s a little ok to be toxic yourself to teach a lesson haha)-you are entitled to have fun and live unapolegetically without being conformed to double standard and unrealistic “expectations” society has for us….you are the baddest girl in the world!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

ACTUALLY support and for bigger artist not to steal from smaller creatives and not give them credit. You know, a lot of people say the support or will support you but then, go ghost, or go rouge and granted, no one is entitle to give you the time of day but, as artists, support from strangers really drives us and they are the ones that fuels the careers of artist and entertainers. Support by sharing our music and posts, follow us and leave encouraging words, hype us up, add our music to your playlists, buy our music if you can afford it, attend one of our live performances if you can, engage with us… support goes far beyond just buying things and streaming a song one or two times.

We also think bigger artists and companies need to stop taking from smaller artists and taking credit for things that they did not do. That hurts smaller artists so bad in so many ways and unfortunately, they get away with it because they are bigger, more recognized artists. We have seen first hand how shady that is because, it happened to us. That kinda goes back to supporting, like, is there a written or unwritten rule that says bigger artists can’t give credit to or support smaller artists? There is room for everyone to do their own thing as we’re in our own lanes, no need to sh*t on the little guy (girls, in our case).

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Having people resonate with your music and message is so amazing. Seeing people sing your songs, telling you how your music makes them feel and having people see the intention and reason behind why you wrote a particular song. It also feels amazing when people say that we are their “cool sisters”, seeing themselves in us, being able to identify with us and that they love how real, authentic and fun we are because, that is one of our main goals and messages, BEING YOURSELF, BEING CONFIDENT AND HAVING FUN!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @envthegroup
• Twitter: @envthegroup
• Youtube: ENV The Group
• Other: Tik Tok: @envthegroup

Image Credits
Kenyon Blanden (Kenyon Blanden Photography) William Lindsey (Village Prod)