Rochelle Fleming Dies At 72, Leaving First Choice’s Mark On Hip-Hop Soul

Rochelle Fleming, the First Choice singer whose records reached new fans through Mary J. Blige and Kaytranada, died at 72.

She died November 5 in Philadelphia. Her manager, George Iz Correia, shared the news on behalf of her family. No cause of death was announced.

BMG paid tribute to Fleming on November 9, pointing to the remixes and samples that kept her group’s songs in use long after their first release. The company represents part of First Choice’s catalog through Salsoul.

“Rochelle was a remarkable singer, and the records she made with First Choice have had a lasting influence on dance music,” BMG executive Dan Baxter said.

For fans of Hip-Hop soul, one route back to First Choice runs through Blige. She closed her 1999 album Mary with a cover of “Let No Man Put Asunder.” The song came from First Choice’s 1977 album Delusions, which also held “Doctor Love.”

The track had found a second life well before Blige sang it. First Choice broke up in 1980, but a 1983 remix of “Let No Man Put Asunder” helped renew interest in the group’s work. Club DJs kept drawing on the song as house music grew.

A different First Choice record reached listeners through Kaytranada.

He sampled “Love Thang” on “10%,” his 2019 song with Kali Uchis from the album Bubba. The track went on to win Best Dance Recording at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

Those later records drew from a group rooted in Philadelphia’s teen music scene. Fleming and her school friends first sang as the Debonettes before adopting the name First Choice. Their first record under that name, “This Is the House (Where Love Died),” came out in 1972.

A year later, “Armed and Extremely Dangerous” reached No. 11 on the R&B chart and No. 28 on the pop chart. Producer Norman Harris helped shape their early sound and worked with the group as it moved to Gold Mind, a label linked to Salsoul.

First Choice made six albums before the split. Fleming kept recording on her own, including the 1985 single “Love Itch,” while the group’s old songs kept resurfacing on new records.