Madame X

Rick James invented the Mary Jane Girls. Prince formulated Vanity 6. And in ’87, Bernadette Cooper—producer-drummer from R&B girl band, Klymaxx (of “Meeting in the Ladies Room” fame)—made Madame X. Valerie Victoria, Iris Parker and the late jazz singer Alisa Randolph flowed over an über-funky (backwards!) Yamaha RX5 beat that could only have been programmed by a drummer: “Just That Type of Girl” was all over BET, MTV and R&B radio. Things fell apart inexplicably almost immediately. But Madame X, especially the haunting ballad “Cherries in the Snow,” proved there should have been much more where this came from.