Music
Press
“DANITY KANE,” the self-titled debut album from Bad Boy Records’ sensational new female quintet, has made a spectacular #1 debut on the SoundScan/Billboard 200 album chart. Driven by a rapidly spreading wildfire of fan demand, the album exploded to the top spot, upsetting releases by established multi-platinum artists OutKast and Christina Aguilera, and selling over 234,000 units in its first week.
The music industry’s newest Cinderella story, “DANITY KANE” is an out-of-the-box phenomenon at retail, selling nearly 90,000 units in its first day alone. The album quickly sold out at most stores across the country, prompting a massive effort by both the label and retail community to restock shelves overnight to meet demand. The album has shipped over half a million copies, with retail orders now topping the 625,000 mark. Meanwhile, on the digital front, “DANITY KANE” instantly became the #1 album on iTunes, with an average fan ranking of 4-and-a-half stars (out of 5).
The stars of Diddy’s hit MTV series Making the Band 3, Danity Kane has defied industry convention, with six-figure sales being generated almost exclusively from huge street buzz and exponential word-of-mouth – an unprecedented achievement for a new artist with little radio airplay.
Bad Boy CEO Sean “Diddy” Combs said: “This is an historic moment for Bad Boy Records and Danity Kane. These are five hugely talented women, and they worked amazingly hard to make their dream come true. I want to thank all our friends at MTV for their great support in helping us make the band. Danity Kane is the real deal. I knew it from the beginning, the fans knew it from the beginning, and now the whole industry knows it. The people have spoken.”
“Danity Kane hitting number one represents another amazing chapter in our relationship with Diddy and Bad Boy,” said Christina Norman, President, MTV. “As millions of MTV viewers witnessed first hand on ‘Making the Band,’ these ladies earned their success through hard work, determination and raw talent.”
“When Diddy and I joined together to find an international supergroup, we knew it had to be a group that would stand out above the rest and set the standard for others to follow,” said Danity Kane’s manager Johnny Wright. “The talented ladies of Danity Kane are just that. I'm blessed to have found them and look forward to helping to guide them to be the best in the business.”
“The formula works like this: Diddy, Bad Boy Records, talented and beautiful artists, and the marketing strategy,” said Steve Lerner, Circuit City’s Senior National Buyer/Music. “It’s the culmination of many factors, and Danity Kane actually brings back the excitement of what the music business is all about – Artist Development!”
“Danity Kane is an amazing artist development story,” noted Virgin Megastore Sr. Product Manager Jerry Suarez. “For us we were pleasantly surprised, just another indication that if you put a good record together people will buy it. Bad Boy did a great job creating excitement for this release, but that doesn't always sell records. You need to put together a solid release, and they delivered. Bad Boy is doing a great job of being a strong, diversified label."
“Danity ‘Co-Kane’… people are fiendin’ for it!” commented Violet Brown, Director of Urban Music for Trans World Entertainment. “It is great to have a new title of this magnitude!”
The video for Danity Kane’s first single, “Show Stopper,” is in Big 10 (heavy) rotation on MTV and is the #1 most-streamed video on MTV.com, where Danity Kane also has the #1 most-visited artist page. The group’s MySpace page has racked up nearly 14 million audio plays, with 11 million plays in just the last week alone. The group now has over 325,000 friends on their site and is the #2 ranked MySpace artist, just behind fellow Bad Boy artist Yung Joc.
The Jim Jonsin-produced “Show Stopper” debuted at #5 last week on Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs chart. Danity Kane is the #4 most searched artist on Yahoo! Music, where “Show Stopper” has jumped from #56 to #11 in one week. At AOL Music, “Show Stopper” is the #4-ranked song, while its companion video debuts this week at #11. On YouTube, the “Show Stopper” clip has been streamed over one million times.
In addition, “Show Stopper” was Warner Music Group’s #1 ringtone the week of 8/14, with sales over 90,000. As of this week, Danity Kane ringtones are being featured at every major mobile carrier.
Danity Kane is the latest in a string of #1 successes from Bad Boy Records. Most recently, Yung Joc’s debut album, “NEW JOC CITY” (Block Entertainment/ Bad Boy South), debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. At the same time, the label has hit the top of the charts with current smash singles from both Yung Joc (“It’s Goin’ Down”) and new discovery Cassie (“Me & U”). “DANITY KANE” is Bad Boy’s seventh #1 album on the Billboard 200, following The Notorious B.I.G.’s “LIFE AFTER DEATH” and “BORN AG - Press Release
Discography
Danity Kane
* Released: August 22, 2006
* Chart Positions: #1 U.S., #2 U.S./R&B
* U.S. Sales: 1,126,494
* RIAA Certification: Platinum
Singles
"Show Stopper" (featuring Yung Joc)
"Ride for You"
Photos
Bio
Hundreds of contestants vied for a spot in Diddys girl group on MTVs smash reality series Making the Band 3, and now the shows five victors Dawn, Aubrey, D. Woods, Shannon and Aundrea under the name Danity Kane, are preparing to take their musical partnership to the next level.
The groups eponymous debut album for Diddys label, Bad Boy Records, is an intoxicating mix of sexy R&B, hip-hop and pop that showcases the quintets flawless vocal talent and passion. It also boasts contributions from such top producers as Timbaland (Missy Elliott, Nelly Furtado, Aaliyah), Rodney Darkchild Jerkins (Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey), Mario Winans (P. Diddy, Destinys Child, The Notorious B.I.G.), Jim Jonsin (Twista, Jamie Foxx, Trina), Bryan-Michael Cox (Usher, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton), Rami (*NSYNC, the Veronicas) and Ryan Leslie (Britney Spears, Tha Dogg Pound). Diddy is the albums Executive Producer, with Bad Boy Executive VP Harve Pierre serving as Co-Executive Producer.
The groups sleek, Jonsin-produced lead single, Show Stopper, featuring Yung Joc, received tens of thousands of plays on MySpace.com (where Danity Kane has cultivated throngs of admirers) long before being delivered to radio. Other standout tracks on the disc include the upbeat One Shot, produced by Cox, and the smoldering, Timbaland-helmed R&B cut Right Now.
Collectively, the quintet possesses a notable breadth of talent and experience in vocal performance, dance, songwriting, acting, visual art and more. And though viewers of MTVs Making the Band are well aware of the differences in their personalities, its clear that theyve emerged as a unit playing to their strengths and encouraging one another to grow.
Danity Kane takes its name from a female anime superhero conceived by Dawn, whose skills as an illustrator caught Diddys eye. The impresario was so taken with the characters beguiling handle that he selected it for the group, deciding it captured their vibrant appeal and would represent them not merely as superstars but as a band of heroines.
Given her upbringing, New Orleans-bred Dawn seems to have been destined for a music career. Her mother owned a dance studio, while her father was a keyboardist who played in the R&B band Chocolate Milk (which opened for Michael Jackson, Earth Wind & Fire and other luminaries). Her moms talent and her dads gigs ignited in Dawn an unquenchable desire to perform. She studied tap, jazz, ballet and hip-hop dance and became a cheerleader for the New Orleans Hornets before joining the group Angelique, which toured the South, supporting singer Anthony Hamilton. The girls call me the passion in the group, she reveals. When Im on stage, I become someone else. Thats when I can be wild, sexy, crazy and passionate. I leave everything at the mic.
California native Aundrea was singing rancheros and other song forms by the time she was old enough to talk, and by age eight she was a fixture in her churchs choir. Roles in school plays followed, and in her teens she began recording in a studio and joined the pop ensemble Intrigue. It was with this group that her love of stage performance fully blossomed. The youngest in her tight-knit family, Aundrea headed home whenever possible during breaks in the shooting of Making the Band 3.
Shannon hails from Portland, Ore and has been an avid singer and dancer since childhood. She learned a great deal about performing with a group when she became a Portland Trailblazers cheerleader at age 19. Eclectic in her musical taste, she expresses admiration for acts as far afield as Aerosmith and Garth Brooks. The only member of Danity Kane who sports a wedding ring, Shannon attributes some of the poise and confidence her bandmates have praised in her to the bond she enjoys with her spouse. Hes so positive, she declares of her husband, a fellow dancer. He helps me push myself.
Ive done musical theater and dramatic stage productions, interned at Power 105 in New York, appeared in commercials and music videos, and toured as a dancer with major recording artists, reveals D. Woods. Ive tried it all, because I like to stay busy. Since her earliest days growing up in Springfield, Mass., shes been enamored of every aspect of performance; over the years shes studied modern, ballet, hip-hop and West African dance, undergone intensive voice training, developed her songwriting skills and educated herself about the business. A fan of Mary J. Blige, Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z, among many others, shes equally at home with hip-hop and classic soul.
At age three, Aubrey stepped onstage and never looked back. Reared in the sun-soaked confines of Palm Springs, Calif., she appeared in productions of virtually every major musical production (including Annie, The Sound of Music, A Chorus Line, Fiddler on the Roof and The Wizard of Oz). She won a slew of honors for both singing and acting in vario
Links
