Good morning, POU Family! This week’s morning threads will pay homage to some of the our favorite R&B Girl groups of the 90’s. Today’s group – 702.
702 (pronounced “Seven-Oh-Two”), named after the area code of their hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, is an American R&B girl group, with the final and most known line up consisting of Kameelah Williams and sisters Irish and LeMisha Grinstead.
The group was originally a quartet featuring the Grinstead sisters, which included identical twins Irish and Orish (born June 2, 1980 in Houston, TX), their older sister LeMisha (born June 10, 1978 in Houston, TX) and Amelia Childs whom they debuted as featured artists on Subway’s hit single “This Lil’ Game We Play”. Amelia and Orish were removed from the group due to Mike Bivens not favoring their voices and were briefly replaced by classmates Tiffany Villarreal and Kameelah Williams. After six months before their debut single was released Tiffany would depart the group. Continuing as a trio, they released their debut single “Steelo” with great success.
Their first released album No Doubt in 1996, sold 500,000 copies in the United States. In 1999 the trio released the most famous 702 song called “Where My Girls At?” on the album 702 which gained a high level of success for the group selling 1,000,000 copies in the United States. For undisclosed conflicting personal reasons with the record label, Kameelah Williams distanced herself from the Grinstead sisters after the release of that album, and was replaced by Cree La’More, a solo singer who Irish and LeMisha personally picked to join the group. The new line-up released a single called “Pootie Tangin'” for the Pootie Tang soundtrack, though shortly after this, Kameelah Williams returned to the group, and for undisclosed reasons, Cree La’More left the ensemble. With the return of Kameelah Williams, they released the album Star which is mostly remembered for the single “I Still Love You”. The group then disbanded in 2006. They regrouped again in 2017, and appeared at the 2017 Soul Train Music Awards.
In Las Vegas, sisters LeMisha and Irish Grinstead were students at the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts. Irish, her twin sister Orish, and LeMisha occasionally sang in the lobby of Caesars Palace where they were discovered by actor/comedian Sinbad. He visited their home in order to convince their parents to send the trio to Atlanta for a convention and music competition. Though the girls missed the deadline for entry, Sinbad used his name to get them in. “Sweeta than Suga,” as they were then called (Sinbad suggested the name), came in second in the competition. As the convention was nearing a close, they met Michael Bivins (of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe) who agreed to work with the sisters. They were briefly joined by singer Amelia Childs. The reconfigured group was christened “702,” which is Las Vegas’ area code, a name which Bivens suggested. After they made their recorded debut on Subway’s hit single “This Lil’ Game We Play”, Soon after Amelia and Orish was removed from the group due to poor vocals and replaced by Kameelah Williams and Tiffany Villarreal who were classmates at the academy. After 6 months in the group Tiffany would depart for a solo career. Bivins continued to work with different producers and songwriters to get the right feel for their first album.