The Brilliance of Melanie Brown
“Wannabe” remains one of the splashiest introductions for a recording act.
Twenty-seven years removed from its release, the track and video have lost none of their power and we have the Spice Girls — Victoria Beckham (Posh), Melanie Brown (Scary), Emma Bunton (Baby), Melanie Chisholm (Sporty) and Geri Horner (Ginger) — to thank for that.
Returning to the clip for a moment, recall the (then) dilapidated hallway of the Midland Grand Hotel (also known as the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel) in the heart of London, cheekily done up as a swank, hipster hangout. Brown bounds down said hallway, her gorgeous face framed by a cascade of natural curls, outfitted in a lime green tank top, baggy trousers and combat boots.
To say nothing of that fiery proclamation of “Yo…!”
While Beckham, Bunton, Chisholm and Horner were assuredly making their own inimitable vibes known, Brown was a unique combination of sound and vision parted from the Spice collective.
“Wannabe” was just one of many thrilling moments to occur from 1996 to 2002, the seven year stretch which saw the Spice Girls rise to global renown and then spin off into their own individual paths until their formal reformation on June 28th, 2007. Through it all, Brown was fascinating to watch. Despite her mixed raced heritage — she was the elder of two daughters born to a black father (Martin) and a white mother (Andrea) on May 29, 1975 in Hyde Park, Leeds, England — Brown presented as a woman of color without shortchanging her biracial identity.
That sense of self made its way into her art.
Brown’s evocative mezzo-soprano, whether on its own or in cooperation with her other four groupmates, evinced that the Leeds lass has a solid set of pipes. Performance wise, Brown’s firebrand nature cannot be denied, she always brings her very best to any stage, big or small.
Gregarious, smart and instinctual, these character traits could be seen in her fashion sense too; from ‘round-the-way girl cool, Afro-punk chic or crisp couture, Brown never disappointed.
By the summer of 1998, Brown was the most visible black British woman on the planet. The rest of the year found her going from strength to strength: she became the first Spice Girl to score a solo number-one hit, co-host the Music of Black Origin (or MOBO) Awards whilst serving as one of its marquee performers, and take hold of another record-breaking chart-topper with the Spice Girls (their eighth).
Yet, the court of public opinion is a fickle space — Brown wasn’t immune.
Her blackness could just as easily be negated or weaponized by the predominantly white press and certain sections of the Spice Girls fanbase as much as they seemed to celebrate it. Recall the tabloid frenzy in the wake of Horner’s unexpected departure from the fold on May 31st, 1998.
The scandal sheets and general news media in Britain were quick to cast Brown as the “hothead” who “bullied” Horner out of the quintet. It was an egregious, but familiar caricature rooted in the “angry black woman” stereotype. Given the common knowledge that Brown and Horner each possessed strong dispositions, somehow it all came down to being Brown’s fault. And, of course, there was the musical component.
Previously, I’ve written about how the Spice Girls utilized black music (in various forms) within their well-rounded pop genre-style, as a unit and on their own; this fact has been purposely ignored by white pundits, so-called fans and the like.
Thankfully, in the last five years, a necessary conversation with concern to race and how the Spice Girls’ output has roots in black aestheticism (sonically) has finally begun. There’s still much to do in correcting this willful omission regarding their discographic history; my contribution to this cause is best summarized in the second edition of my book Record Redux: Spice Girls and several of my stand-alone pieces written for Albumism, two of which are hyperlinked in this write-up. The brief overview of Brown’s individual career detailed here will also serve a similar function.
The solo unknown beckoned via “I Want You Back,” a stellar slice of futuristic soul supervised by hip-hop titan Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott. The song was released on September 14th, 1998, as one of three singles lifted from the multi-artist companion album to the Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love? Brief trepidation from the suits at Virgin Records, Brown’s label, ensued; they weren’t sure what to make of her involvement in a primarily African-American cinematic endeavor. They still allowed Brown to go ahead, licensing her to appear on the triple-imprint Elektra/EastWest/Gold Mind-sponsored soundtrack.
“I Want You Back” triumphed at radio and retail in the United Kingdom while generating buzz stateside to Brown’s satisfaction — Virgin didn’t clear the single for release in the United States — showing that she’d tapped into something. And for all the singularities of the black American and black British cultural experiences, Brown became a nexus between them; her debut Hot (2000) was proof of the intersectional position she held.
In the lead-up to Hot, two singles graced the U.K. Top 20 (in 1999) and U.K. Top 10 (in 2000) with “Word Up!” (a cover of the 1986 Cameo chestnut) and “Tell Me.” Each piece maintained the quality of “I Want You Back,” but had a tougher battle to wage commercially and critically parted from that initial blush of consumer curiosity around Brown’s first single.
Virgin kept at their polite, arm’s length routine with Brown, failing to build upon any goodwill won at home or percolating curiosity abroad. Subsequently, a primarily white-buying base (with more pop-oriented tastes) couldn’t appreciate what Brown was attempting nor did she have wholesale support from black Britons who viewed her as a semi-anomaly.
These factors limited the sales reach of Hot — it garnered a silver certification domestically, an unfortunate development given the superlative writer-producers aiding her on that album. I elaborate on this point further in Record Redux: Spice Girls, “Perhaps more on Hot than on any other record in the Spice canon, the roster of trackmasters and co-writers would turn heads. The list of participants was prodigious: James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III, Terry Lewis, Teddy Riley, Rodney Jerkins, Timothy “Timbaland” Mosley and Missy Elliott. […] Melanie B sagaciously harnessed her popular culture currency as a Spice Girl to secure an audience with these creatives, but it was her earnestness to actualize a modern R&B record that ultimately won them over.”
Aside from a few lackluster artistic choices from Brown on Hot, it holds fast as an engaging collection — not least of all because of how the blackness of its maker is showcased. Although the long player isn’t completely steeped in black Britishness per se, there are elements of it active on the wax with the folky pop-soul of “I Believe” or the vintage rhythm and blues entries “Feels So Good” and “Step Inside.” These songs broke with the prevailing African-American tenor of the project heard on “Hell No,” “ABC 123,” and the aforementioned “Tell Me.”
Relocation to Los Angeles, California in 2003 eventually put Brown on the independent path with her sophomore (and conclusive) album L.A. State of Mind (2005); the effort was issued on the Amber Café imprint after her acclaimed feature in a 2004 Broadway iteration of the revered musical Rent as “Mimi Marquez.”
The LP (co-created with Kevin Malpass and Julie Morrison) wouldn’t garner attention upon its initial reveal, but the charmingly lo-fi offering, as described in Record Redux: Spice Girls, is “[…] a sun-dappled intermix of acoustic, adult contemporary pop and light soul flavors.” Additionally, it housed some of Brown’s most intimate lyrics to date. Pieces like “Stay in Bed Days,” “If I Had My Life Again,” and “In Too Deep” yielded insight into her evolution as a woman.
L.A. State of Mind has since attained cult status with Spice Girls devotees.
Brown’s inceptive move into acting later pivoted into a makeover as a top tier reality television personality — specifically on shows like Dancing with the Stars, The X-Factor and America’s Got Talent in the coming decade and beyond. Those small screen environs let Brown shine and share knowledge from her tenures within the music and entertainment industries. During that same time span, Brown fielded the professional highs of two Spice Girls reunions in 2007–2008 and 2012; she also endured private lows too.
Brutally Honest, the 2018 sequel to her first memoir Catch a Fire — which won rave reviews in 2002 — saw Brown disclose the fraught circumstances of her second marriage to film producer Stephen Belafonte. Its issuance coincided with Brown’s divorce from Belafonte and her repairing relationships left damaged from her time with him. She flipped those difficulties into a positive soon enough with her domestic abuse advocacy for the Women’s Aid Federation.
Four years later, William, Prince of Wales, awarded Brown with a MBE Honor (Member of the Order of the British Empire) on May 4th, 2022; it was the culmination of what she’d achieved with her public platform on behalf of others. She became the second Spice Girl to receive a similar distinction following Victoria Beckham’s OBE Honor for her services to the British fashion industry on April 17th, 2017.
Parallel to her continued advocacy duties, Brown remains an in-demand television figure, but it was her appearance alongside Bunton, Chisholm and Horner on the recent Spice Girls reunion tour in 2019 that demonstrated her finest skillset as a live performer.
Brown’s leap from a humble working class background in Leeds is all the more remarkable when one looks at the entirety of her life, thus far. Better still is that none of the challenges she’s encountered have extinguished that puckish fire burning within her. More than just being “Scary Spice,” Brown is as brazen, complex and wild as she ever was.
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Read more about Melanie Brown in the second edition of Record Redux: Spice Girls, which is available to order here. Author Quentin Harrison uses the ambitious project to trace the rise of the British quintet by examining every studio album and single in their repertoire, group and solo. His most recent book Record Redux: Kylie Minogue was just published in its second edition on June 6th, 2023. Previous entries from the Atlanta, Georgia based writer-author center on Carly Simon, Donna Summer and Madonna.
