Oscar - Spotlight (1992)

Oscar was a multi-racial girl group based in the US and brought together by production duo Charles Farrar and Troy Taylor, better known as The Characters. While The Characters had had some success the previous couple of years with producing some R&B hits, this was their first real foray into conceiving and managing an act and producing an entire album. They were part of the first wave that utilized the 'New Jack Swing' sound, and with other similar girl groups like TLC and SWV debuting that same year, the term 'New Jill Swing' emerged. The Characters obviously realized that they needed a different angle to make their group stand out of the pack, and the multi-racial aspect was indeed different. They enlisted Sally Ries, Debbie Lewis, Hiromi Kuroiwa and Kia Jeffries to realize their vision. The single "I'm Calling You (Do-Po-Liddle-La-Le-Yeah)" did get some attention, perhaps because of the multi-racial angle, and was a minor R&B hit. But the follow up, the ballad "Keep Touching Me", didn't get more than a promo release and the group was lost in the sea of girl groups. The gimmick obviously didn't pay off. If you ask me, they should have released the song "Give A Little More" as their next single, as it's house-ish vibe was refreshing and different. The Characters would go on to greater success producing hits for acts like Johnny Gill, Brandy, Brownstone, Eternal and even SWV. As for the girls, I can find nothing on any of them but Kia Jeffries. Kia returned to what she had been doing before joining Oscar, session work, most notably as the featured vocalist on rapper Akinyele's naughty "Put It In Your Mouth" in 1996. Two years later she was the driving force behind another girl group, 4Kast, but they too failed to make it big and only released one album. She continued doing session work and writing songs, and eventually was signed as a songwriter to producer/songwriter (Monifah's "Touch It") Jack Knight's company. She now goes by the name Babydoll and is finally pursuing a solo singing career. Go to her Facebook page should you desire to know more. As for the rest of the ladies, we can only hope that they found greater success elsewhere.

Video for I'm Calling You (Do-Po-Liddle-Lo-Le-Yeah)

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1		I'm Calling You (Do-Po-Liddle-Lo-Le-Yeah)
2		Give A Little More
3		Just For You
4		Slide
5		Let Me Make It Better
6		I'll Be There For You
7		Spotlight
8		Baby You
9		Keep Touching Me
10		Sukiyaki
11		How I Spend My Time
12		Give Me A Reason