Epic Records BACKING Camila Cabello’s Solo Debut & Third 5H Album Might Not Happen: Harmonizers Are Furious!
More details keep arising with respect to Camila Cabello's departure from Fifth Harmony and some of the new things that can be read, in yesterday's Billboard report for instance, are definitely both upsetting and worrying - and not just about Camila, but there might be bad news for Fifth Harmony as well!
A RECAP of two small things first:
- At the 2016 Jingle Ball NYC interview with Elvis Duran earlier this month, when asked about the third Fifth Harmony album, Dinah said: "The third album is going to be so lit". With Normani later adding, "2017's gonna be poppin'". By these comments all doubts about a third 5H LP happening should've been cleared but...
- In the second Fifth Harmony joint statement about Camila's exit from the group, the girls said that they even asked Camila to sit down with them and with L.A Reid and other label people. "But she refused", they explained. By these comments it's implied that L.A Reid and Epic Records were interested in keeping Fifth Harmony going, at least for another album, but...
Now let's talk about Billboard's 5H-related new article they published late last night and that's already causing pandemonium amid Harmonizers on Twitter.
The whole article is quite interesting, you can read it in full here, but find below the two key paragraphs that left me, and many more people, completely in shock:
"In fact, Fifth Harmony's label, Epic Records, has been planning a Cabello solo album for the better part of a year, putting the 19-year-old in the studio with such hitmakers as Benny Blanco and Diplo in addition to songwriters Madison Love ("Bad Things”), Johnny Mitchell and Amarr, and producers Futuristics ("Bad Things”) and Serm (Sean Paul's "No Lie”). According to a source, the album is well on its way, with sessions booked through January. Cabello's first solo single could be out as soon as March or April with an album to follow in the summer.
But right now, five girls and their various representatives (three of the five have their own attorneys and lawyer Dina LaPolt represents the group) are dealing with a very cold December. Between the 18th of the month (a day the four girls understood to be Cabello's last with the group, while a source in the Cabello camp claims it only marked the end of their commitments on this album cycle and "did not mean that she wanted to withdraw from the band”) and the end of the year, when Epic's option for a third album by Fifth Harmony comes up, Harmonizers' entire universe could be upended."
Did I just read that Epic Records is all-the-way BACKING Camila's debut solo album? That they've, in the last months, sent her to record solo music with TOP PRODUCERS? Shaaaaaaaame!
So L.A Reid has actually been playing a double game, according to what can be inferred from the Billboard article, with the (remaining) Fifth Harmony girls. On the one hand, he was "willingly" accepting to meet with them and Camila to try "sort things out" and keep Camila in the group and make that third 5H album happen, and, on the other hand, he was PAYING top producers to record music for Camila's solo album? LIKE WHAT THE HELL?
Harmonizers are FURIOUS about this discovery:
Harmonizers react to the recent news of Epic Records being behind Camila's solo project all along: pic.twitter.com/hVcFjvXYLx
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) 22 de diciembre de 2016
Also, so worrying is the last sentence of the second quoted paragraph above: "When Epic's option for a third album by Fifth Harmony comes up, Harmonizers' entire universe could be upended". Yep, this means that MAYBE there won't be a third Fifth Harmony album after all. Epic hasn't FULLY decided on it yet. The girls' manager and lawyers are currently in talks with Epic, and Epic is doubting if they should invest money on a "risky" "Fourth Harmony" or focus 100% on Camila's solo career in 2017.
*I'm just terribly upset for the remaining Fifth Harmony girls. They should seek a new label as soon as possible. One that have them as its main priority.