Changing Faces took shape as a New York-rooted urban soul duo whose sound echoed the style of all-female acts such as TLC and SWV, merging gospel-infused soul vocals with glossy modern production and faint hip-hop accents.
Cassandra Lucas, born in East Harlem, New York, and Charisse Rose, born in the Bronx, New York, first crossed paths as students at the city’s Music and Art High School. After earning their diplomas, the pair followed separate academic routes—Lucas majoring in sociology at Hunter College and Rose concentrating on criminal justice at John Jay—while continuing to work as session singers on demos, jingles, and background tracks.
They reunited during a two-year engagement as touring backup vocalists for Sybil, after which they formed Changing Faces. Back in New York, the women held daytime positions at a Manhattan dermatologist’s office and spent evenings cutting demos with producer Dinky Bingham.
A street-corner performance rather than any taped submission drew the attention of Kenny Smoove, head of Big Beat’s Spoiled Rotten imprint; within a week the duo had signed to the Atlantic subsidiary and begun work on their first album.
R. Kelly, the era’s dominant urban producer, wrote and produced the opening singles “Stroke You Up” and “Foolin’ Around,” both of which reached the R&B Top Ten by late 1994, with the former also climbing to number three on the pop chart. The self-titled Changing Faces debut appeared in 1995 and earned gold certification on the strength of those tracks, even as the third single, “Keep It Right There,” peaked at number 49.
The 1997 sophomore album All Day All Night yielded the Kelly-produced lead single “G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T.,” the group’s biggest success to that point, topping the R&B chart and reaching number eight on the pop side. Three years later the act delivered its third project, Visit Me.
