The year was 1990. While attending Club Palladium, which was one of Houston's best clubs ever, the late DJ Lonnie Mack [of Def IV] takes a quick pause to introduce a new track by a new all female singing group from Oakland, by mentioning what a huge tune it was going to be. He drops the needle at the very beginning and suddenly you hear the intro, an A Capella rendition of the Jackson 5's "Who's Loving You". When they reach the end of the first verse, holding the last word and harmonizing together, suddenly a big bass drop kicks off the beginning of one of the hardest R&B tracks of all time. The crowd lost their minds.
The name of the group was En Vogue, consisting of members Dawn Robinson, Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis, and Cindy Herron. "Hold On" was the first single released off their platinum selling debut studio album Born To Sing which was released in April 1990. By June it was certified at gold status by the RIAA. Topping charts in both the U.S. and U.K., Born To Sing earned the group the most awards won by any female group in the history of the MTV Video Music Awards, a total of seven, along with five Soul Train Awards, six American Music Awards, and seven Grammy nominations. "Hold On" sampled the songs "Synthetic Substitution" by Melvin Bliss and "The Payback" by James Brown.
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