In an exclusive interview with Philippine Concerts, British R&B trio FLO talk about navigating expectations, choosing authenticity over industry calculation, dreaming bigger than ever, and why their ambitions extend far beyond simply being part of the girl-group revival.
For FLO, ambition is not something to disguise.
Renée Downer, Jorja Douglas and Stella Quaresma have spent the past several years establishing themselves as one of contemporary R&B’s most exciting young groups, drawing from the harmonies, attitude and polish of classic girl groups while steadily shaping a musical identity that belongs distinctly to them.
But where some artists might hesitate to verbalize the scale of their ambitions, FLO do not.
“We wanna be the biggest girl group in the world, and we will do everything to get there,” Renée told Philippine Concerts in an exclusive interview.
It is a declaration that speaks not only to where FLO hope to go, but also to how they understand their place in music right now.
“I definitely think we are cutting through in our own lane because we are kinda the only one doing R&B pop as a girl group,” Renée said.
That lane has become increasingly visible as FLO’s audience has expanded beyond the United Kingdom and into an international fanbase that has embraced their vocal chemistry, polished performances and willingness to carry the traditions of R&B girl groups into a new generation.
For Renée, that connection with listeners is already one of the group’s most meaningful achievements.
“I definitely think we’ve done a very good job in cultivating a massive fanbase, and we are very appreciative of that,” she said.
Yet growing visibility comes with growing expectations.
For any young act positioned as one of the potential leaders of a new era of pop and R&B, every release inevitably arrives with discussion: about commercial success, artistic progression, vocal performances, styling, collaborations and what an artist is expected to become next.
FLO are aware of that scrutiny. What has changed is how they respond to it.
“We are always open to people’s opinions, and we do not shy away from constructive criticism,” Stella said. “We always try to grow.”
It is an openness she admits was not always as natural at the beginning of their journey.
“That’s something maybe at the start [we were] less open to, but we’ve grown, and we’re open to growing,” she continued. “Just being in a group, we help each other out to elevate.”
That collective structure has long been one of the defining strengths of girl groups. There is pressure, but there is also reinforcement. Success is shared. So are mistakes, responsibilities and lessons.
Jorja approaches expectations with a similarly practical mindset.
“With the pressure, there is only so much we can do,” she said. “But we always try our best. We always try to grow and develop. As long as we stay focused on that.”
Renée, meanwhile, makes an important distinction between external pressure and the expectations FLO set for themselves.
“It is important that whatever pressure we feel comes from our own ambitions and our own means to elevate and do better, rather than external pressures from the world,” she said.
It is perhaps one of the clearest insights into FLO’s mentality as artists.
Their desire to become bigger does not necessarily mean chasing every expectation placed upon them. Instead, the group appears determined to remain motivated by their own standards — a particularly valuable philosophy in an industry where momentum can quickly turn into pressure to repeat whatever worked last.
That balance between instinct and audience awareness also shapes the group’s creative process.
For Stella, the starting point remains simple: FLO themselves have to believe in the music first.
“In some ways, we think when we love a song then somebody else will love it,” she explained. “Us loving a song is definitely the first and most important thing.”
But artistic confidence does not mean creative rigidity.
As their career expands, FLO have become increasingly willing to experiment, allowing themselves to explore genres and sounds without treating every departure as a referendum on their identity.
“Now, we try to fit in, we try to put out different genres and sounds, we are happy to test the waters,” Stella said. “We definitely did that with some songs in the album, but it’s just fun. It’s fun to try different things, and conversations around songs is always great.”
That curiosity may prove especially important for FLO’s longevity.
R&B remains their foundation, but the history of enduring girl groups has often been defined by evolution. The challenge is preserving a recognizable identity while creating enough room to surprise listeners.
FLO seem increasingly comfortable with that uncertainty.
Jorja even approaches releasing music with a sense of freedom rather than fear.
“We can always release songs,” she said. “We put one song out, and if it does not do very well, we just put a different song out.”
Then she added, with a little confidence: “But that hasn’t happened.”
Beyond the Feature
FLO’s growing profile has also allowed them to work with artists who once existed primarily as inspirations.
Among those collaborations, one name immediately stands apart.
“Collaboration with Missy Elliott really sticks, because it’s just such a big thing to achieve at such a young age,” Renée said. “Missy is iconic.”
For a group deeply informed by R&B’s lineage, collaborating with an artist as influential as Elliott represents more than a notable name attached to a track. It places FLO in conversation with the generation of artists who helped define the sound and visual language they are now reinterpreting.
Still, their experiences have also changed what they want from future collaborations.
For Stella, simply securing a high-profile feature is becoming less important than building an actual creative relationship.
“I think the big thing about a feature now is that we have a relationship with them and it feels authentic,” she said.
“A lot of the features we did, we haven’t been around them when the song is being made. That is something we want to do moving forward.”
It is an increasingly meaningful distinction in an era when collaborations can often feel engineered for playlists, algorithms, audience crossover or chart positioning.
Jorja is particularly conscious of that.
“It’s easy to get caught up in feeling like using somebody for that success, using other people as stepping stones,” she said. “We never want to feel that way.”
Instead, she wants collaborations to be rooted in mutual artistic respect.
“We want to feel that they actually respect us as artists, and we also respect them as artists because we are both going to promote the song,” she explained.
“We gotta love it, and there’s gonna be like an energy, and I think people are really able to see past artificial collaboration, so it is important to us that it is authentic.”
It says something about FLO’s evolving confidence that the conversation is no longer simply about who they would be fortunate enough to work with.
Increasingly, the question is whether the collaboration makes artistic sense for FLO too.
Their dream list remains appropriately ambitious: Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Doechii, Zara Larsson, Doja Cat, SZA and Victoria Monét are among the names they mentioned.
But Jorja also revealed another goal that feels particularly fitting for a group championing the possibilities of the format.
“Next year, a bucket list for us is to collab with another girl group,” she said.
Choosing only one, however, appears to be the problem.
“There are so many, so it’s hard to pick,” Jorja joked. “We just have to collab with them all.”
Thinking in Arenas
FLO’s ambitions become even clearer when the conversation shifts from recording studios to stages.
Asked about the venues and festivals they hope to conquer, their answers ranged from some of the world’s most recognizable concert destinations to two major arenas in the Philippines.
They mentioned Madison Square Garden in New York, London’s O2 Arena, headlining Coachella and Glastonbury, and performing across the main stages and tents of major festivals.
And then there was the prospect of performing before tens of thousands of Filipino fans.
FLO referenced both the roughly 15,000-capacity SM Mall of Asia Arena and the massive Philippine Arena, one of the world’s largest indoor arenas.
For artists still writing the early chapters of their career, those dreams may sound enormous.
But they are also revealing.
FLO do not appear to envision themselves as a niche nostalgia act built solely around the renewed appetite for Y2K R&B aesthetics. They are thinking at pop-star scale.
The goal is not merely to participate in the current girl-group landscape.
It is to eventually lead it.
Meeting the Philippines
That ambition made their first visit to the Philippines particularly meaningful.
Despite already building a strong international following, arriving in a new territory still carries uncertainty. FLO admitted they were nervous because they did not know exactly what to expect from Filipino audiences.
Their appearance on the Wish Bus, however, helped calm those nerves.
The experience served as an early introduction to a market where vocal groups and R&B have historically found passionate audiences — and where international artists are frequently met with an intensity of fandom that can surprise first-time visitors.
For FLO, whose music is built heavily around vocal performance, harmonies and chemistry, the Philippines also represents a natural audience.
Their arrival comes at an interesting point in their evolution.
They are no longer simply a promising new group asking listeners to pay attention. They have built enough of a catalog, fanbase, and artistic identity for the conversation to begin shifting toward something larger: how far can FLO actually go?
The Next Chapter of FLO
There has long been a tendency to discuss new girl groups through comparison.
Who are they reminiscent of? Which earlier group do they resemble? Can they recreate the dominance of the acts who came before them?
FLO understand the history behind their music, but their comments suggest they are increasingly interested in answering a different question.
What does success look like specifically for them?
The answer appears to involve a combination of musical exploration, greater creative confidence, authentic collaborations, increasingly ambitious live performances and a refusal to allow outside expectations to dictate their trajectory.
Most importantly, FLO seem comfortable acknowledging that growth does not require having every part of the journey mapped out.
They can experiment.
They can release another song.
They can change direction.
They can listen to criticism without surrendering their instincts.
And they can dream about arenas long before they have stepped onto those stages.
That combination of flexibility and ambition may ultimately be one of their greatest advantages.
Because the biggest girl group in the world is not a title that can be claimed through intention alone. It is built through songs that travel beyond borders, performances that convert casual listeners into believers and an identity strong enough to evolve without disappearing.
FLO are still in the process of building all of it.
But if Renée Downer, Jorja Douglas and Stella Quaresma have their way, the destinations they mentioned — Madison Square Garden, Coachella, Glastonbury, The O2 and perhaps one day even the Philippine Arena — are not simply fantasies.
They are targets.
And for FLO, thinking big appears to be part of the plan.
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