Twenty years in the past, Raven-Symoné, Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan, and Kiely Williams starred in The Cheetah Girls, a Disney Channel Original Movie that formed a technology.
Before the Cheetah Girls had been delivered to life as a pop and R&B girl group in 2003, they existed on the pages of Deborah Gregory’s Cheetah Girls e-book sequence. Gregory was sought out by Hyperion Books for Children’s “Jump at the Sun” imprint, “which launched in fall 1998 with the mission of celebrating the African-American experience and culture.”
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Gregory’s first Cheetah Girls e-book for the imprint hadn’t been printed but when her idea caught the eye of producers. Debra Martin Chase, who co-executive produced the movie with Whitney Houston, informed The Hollywood Reporter that Disney Channel rejected her authentic imaginative and prescient of a Cheetah Girls TV present. “They said, ‘We can’t sell this. Basically, no one is going to believe that these girls — these Black girls living on Park Avenue — exist.’ I was furious. To his credit, Gary Marsh [former president of Disney Branded Television] said, ‘Look, I can’t control series but I do control the movies. If you turn it into a movie, I’ll make it,’” Chase recalled.
The first movie to be marketed as a Disney Channel Original Movie was Northern Lights starring Diane Keaton in 1997, however DCOMs quickly turned way more tween-centric. “Where we won was [when] we came and focused on young people,” says Tina Treadwell, former VP of expertise growth, casting and various programming at Disney Channel. That identical 12 months, Treadwell developed a sequence of In Concert specials that includes former Mousketeers Britney Spears, *NSYNC, and different family names. In Concert ended, Treadwell explains, as a result of it was not “evergreen” and will solely be rerun for therefore lengthy. However, a film or sequence with authentic music would have extra longevity and will create synergy for Disney.
“Every Monday, right after one of these concerts would air, the sales figures for whatever artist it was would go through the roof, after millions of people watched their live concert special and heard about their life,” says Steven Vincent, senior VP of music and soundtracks for Disney Branded Television. “So it was like, well, that’s making a whole bunch of money for all of these external companies, but really, maybe there’s a way to do that and have it benefit Disney and create our own pop stars.”
Jay Landers was senior VP of A&R at Walt Disney Records, seeking to revitalize the label within the 2000s. He mentions that Annette Funicello was “fully synergized throughout the company before that term was widely used. So, I thought maybe the best place to get things going here at Disney Records would be to turn the Disney kids, the stars from the Disney Channel, into singers.” The first piece of the puzzle was Hilary Duff, whose reputation because the star of Lizzie McGuire was simple. “I made a deal with the Disney Channel to put out a Lizzie McGuire soundtrack,” says Landers. Duff was additionally included on the primary Disneymania soundtrack earlier than her debut Santa Claus Lane album. Though Landers’ plan wasn’t fashionable at first, it labored — and the remainder is historical past.
Where Hilary Duff was Disney Channel’s first main in-house solo artist, The Cheetah Girls had been the primary group to convey music to the forefront of the Disney Channel Original Movie model.
Assembling a forged that mirrored the variety of Gregory’s characters — and of Disney Channel’s viewers — was vital. “It was kind of a no-brainer that Raven would be a part of The Cheetah Girls, because she was the face of the network. She sang, she danced, she acted, did all those things,” Treadwell says. Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams additionally had a relationship with Disney Channel, having appeared on an episode of The Jersey whereas within the girl group 3LW. Solange Knowles was initially going to painting Williams’ character, Aqua, however was unable to proceed with the challenge.
The group was accomplished with Sabrina Bryan as Dorinda. Bryan remembers, “Being on the channel was like the it thing. Of course, booking any TV show would be great. But the channel was just this epic goal that I think anyone that was auditioning had.” She remembers seeing Christy Carlson Romano on the twenty first ground of the Disney Channel constructing, the place auditions occurred. “You’re just like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s made it. This is it,’” Bryan says. Although she was requested to learn for all 4 components, she linked with Dorinda and was thrilled to sing, dance, and act.
“On my personal albums, it was more R&B and a little bit slower,” says Raven-Symoné. She loved the pop components within the music as she had the girl group expertise for the primary time. “Normally when I’m doing music, I have a whole bunch of guy dancers with me. So I’m used to that masculine energy. And I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to be the dude in this scenario. Understood.’ It was fun to be able to share the stage with other really talented females and not have to hold the weight of the world on only my shoulders. I could share the stage,” she says.
The soundtrack for The Cheetah Girls was launched August 12, 2003. “We weren’t even sure if we were going to do a soundtrack album because it was kind of the first one. And then it was like, ‘Well, if we’re ever going to do one…’” Vincent says. “‘It’s original music. We’ve got four or five songs and then a couple of licensed songs that we can add to the album. You know, let’s just see what happens.’ And the label was on board to be partners for that. But nobody knew what this was going to be.”
Greg Cham labored as a music supervisor alongside his brother, the late music producer Ray Cham. The duo had years of business expertise and had labored with Disney Channel on the 2002 DCOM Gotta Kick It Up! Greg remembers that for The Cheetah Girls, “Everyone involved with the project had a particular sort of idea of what the music should sound like.” It was vital to strike the best steadiness between pop and R&B. Destiny’s Child, En Vogue, and TLC had been inspirations.
“Ray always had a home studio, so all of the pre-production took place in those studios. And I’m pretty sure he recorded all of the live instrumentation in his studio, as well,” Greg says. “The only thing that we recorded outside of his studio were typically the group’s vocals. And we worked with Tal Herzberg, amazing, amazing, amazing engineer.” The Cheetah Girls recorded at Herzberg’s studio in Studio City. The film was shot in Toronto.
In the very first scene of the movie, The Cheetahs carry out “Together We Can,” written by Will Robinson, Steve Lee, and Walter Turbitt. The energetic quantity rolls together with pulsating rhythms and imaginative lyrics: “Together we can shoot the moon, stop the rain, even ride a hurricane.” The track was initially written for Inspector Gadget 2 however had not been utilized in that movie.
“We came up with what we thought was really a cool, fun, up-tempo, vibey song,” says Robinson, who remembers laughing along with his co-writers as they created these “zany, wacky lyrics” for the Inspector Gadget installment. About a 12 months later, Brian Rawlings, former VP of music publishing at Disney, referred to as him about utilizing the track for The Cheetah Girls, with a number of lyric rewrites. Robinson was invited again as a co-writer for The Cheetah Girls 2, working with Jamie Houston on “Amigas Cheetahs.”
“Cinderella” had different lives earlier than it turned a Cheetah Girls track. It was initially sung by a global girl group referred to as i5, then by the Swedish girl group Play (whose “Us Against the World” had been featured on Lizzie McGuire).
Lindy Robbins co-wrote the pop hit and got here up with the lyrics and melody in her automotive, a capella. Robbins says, “It just popped into my head, which is how I write most of my songs. They just come to me.” Kevin Savigar labored on tracks and helped formulate chords, setting the scene with minor-key arpeggiated accompaniment. Jay Landers was in contact with Debra Martin Chase and helped “Cinderella” discover its solution to The Cheetah Girls. In variations sung by different girl teams, the refrain contains the road, “I don’t wanna be like Snow White waiting for a handsome prince to come and save me.” For The Cheetah Girls, that line was modified to “I don’t wanna be like someone waiting for a handsome prince to come and save me.”
“[Roy E. Disney] had this very, very hard-line attitude that the Disney characters should not acknowledge each other, that they should all be in separate universes,” says Landers, explaining that this mentality carried over to the pop track. Despite the change, the lyrics have stood the check of time.
Filming “Cinderella” for the expertise present audition scene made an enormous impression on Sabrina Bryan. “There weren’t a lot of people in the audience. We were creating the energy of that music within the four of us. Really it was just the crew that was in the audience,” Bryan remembers.
Raven-Symoné’s mother noticed the magic in “Cinderella” instantly. “She loves ‘Cinderella’ so much that she watched and listened to that song on repeat,” Raven-Symoné says, singing a little bit of the refrain. “It was so interesting because when I was singing it, I didn’t hear the words. I just sang it because I knew I had a job to do and I had to get it done. I go back now and I’m like, ‘Oh, snap. Talk about girl power.’”
The group subsequent sings “Girl Power,” by Ray Cham and Rwaana M. Barnes, once they’re making an attempt to get a report cope with Jackal Johnson. A glimmering piano line is juxtaposed with wealthy, percussive bass – an ideal mixture for stylish however highly effective teen stars.
Greg Cham remembers, “There was always the desire from the label to make sure that each girl had the appropriate amount of time in each song as a feature.” That purpose is completed in “Girl Power,” giving every Cheetah a closeup shot on her designated line. “Interestingly, it was a little bit of the kid version of Sex and the City in that some girls saw themselves as a Galleria, some saw [themselves as] more of a Dorinda. Because the girls were very distinct characters,” Vincent says.
From its enchanting descending scale on the piano to its depraved electrical guitar solo by Rob “Fonksta” Bacon, “Cheetah Sisters” is the last word finale to this Cheetah chapter. Brian Rawlings requested Jamie Houston to come back on board to put in writing a theme track shortly for deadline functions; Houston wrote “Cheetah Sisters” in a day, first creating the melody, then the lyrics, then singing the demo himself.
After studying the script, Houston explains, “I knew that it was, ‘these girls were a team and they were gonna take on the world together’ type of thing.” Two many years later, the track is an anthem.
Greg Cham says director Oz Scott “made sure that the spirit of the song was evoked in the film.” The finale happens proper after the feuding Cheetahs – coincidentally clad in coordinating Cheetah-print tracksuits – work collectively to rescue Galleria’s canine, Toto. Their nighttime efficiency lets the drama construct to a crescendo. Toto is saved, and the women are about to go their separate methods when Galleria begins singing, “There’s a time when we all choose…” The women end her sentence one after the other, launching into superior choreography and stunts. Their punchy declaration echoes all through Disney Channel historical past: “We’re Cheetah Girls, Cheetah sisters.”
“By the end of the movie, they went out into the streets of New York and suddenly we had a big finale,” Vincent says. “It kind of then set the table for things that followed and even set the table for the second and third movie, which became break-into-song movies.”
Brian Rawlings says, “You think about where we were when MMC happened and the talent that was on that show that we let leave Disney and go to other record companies and go on with their careers. That’s where we were at the Disney Channel in 1991.” Everything modified within the 2000s, and Rawlings considers every step “an iteration more than it is a complete redirection.” There had been gradients of musical involvement in DCOMs, even proper after The Cheetah Girls, with Stuck within the Suburbs and Pixel Perfect.
The remaining 4 songs on The Cheetah Girls album are Hope 7’s optimistic (and lovably 2000s) “Breakthrough,” Christie Mac’s tenderly-sung “End of the Line,” Char’s trendy “Girlfriend” (Raven-Symoné’s favourite), and a rap spoof referred to as “C’mon,” for the expertise present opponents Sonic Chaos.
Those concerned within the 2003 DCOM and its soundtrack agree that The Cheetah Girls made High School Musical attainable. Raven-Symoné says, “I love being first. I’ll just say that. It’s a great thing to have that sentence of, ‘You paved the way.’ It’s interesting because not only were we music-forward, but we were also brown and Black.”
Sabrina Bryan says, “What I love the most is to now see the girls that were tiny girls back then that are boss ladies now and doing what they wanted when they were little watching us. Like, whenever that spark came in their mind, to know that we were a little bit behind that sparkle of saying, ‘You can do this. If this is what you want, work your butt off. You can do this.’ I don’t think very many people get to really say that in their career. And it just feels like such a privilege to know that I was a big part of such a huge thing in so many ways.”
The soundtrack’s success was additionally rewarding. “First week was maybe five thousand units, it’s like, ‘Okay, okay, it’s just getting started, and it’s getting promoted on the channel.’ Next week was maybe ten thousand units. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re moving up the ladder,’” Greg Cham says. Sales started climbing, finally hitting “100,000 units a week,” Cham provides. While working at a tanning salon, Bryan acquired a cellphone name from Debra Martin Chase herself, congratulating her on the album’s platinum standing. There are photographs of Raven-Symoné celebrating a platinum plaque together with her household, songwriter Lindy Robbins, and Disney executives. Billboard later reported that the album had bought 2 million copies, so it really went double-platinum.
Over the following 5 years, the Cheetahs took their goals and their expertise to Spain in The Cheetah Girls 2 – and Williams, Bryan, and Bailon turned an actual, touring girl group, making the DCOM franchise a trilogy with The Cheetah Girls: One World. The motion pictures and the music rejoice girlhood, however additionally they rejoice inclusivity on a fair deeper stage.
As Bailon’s Chanel says, “You’re a Cheetah Girl because of who you are and what’s in your heart.” Millions of individuals all around the world are Cheetah Girls at coronary heart, nonetheless singing alongside to “Cinderella” after twenty years.
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