Episode Summary
This week we're discussing 3 brothers from Boston, Massachusetts, who were able to bridge the gap between hip hop and R&B in a way that hadn’t been done up until that point. Their music was “mentally Hip Hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip, with a Pop feel, appeal to it.” We're talking about Bell Biv Devoe. Made up of Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe—all members of New Edition—they branched off and blew up in 1990 with Poison, an album that defined the "new jack swing" era, and this week just happens to be the 35th anniversary (damn!) of its release, so we decided to get into that and more!
Transcript
Christina: Welcome back to They Reminisce Over You, a podcast that takes a nostalgic look back at the best in music, movies, and TV from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s. I'm Christina.
Miguel: And I'm Miguel. This week, we're discussing three brothers from Boston, Massachusetts, who were able to bridge the gap between hip hop and R&B in a way that hadn't been done up until that point.
Christina: “Smoothed out on the R&B tip.”
Miguel: “With a pop feel, appeal to it.” We are talking about Bell Biv DeVoe on this episode. So are you ready to just get into it?
Christina: Let’s do it.
Miguel: Like I said, this episode, we're talking about Bell Biv DeVoe, also known as BBD, also known as Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe. Former members of New Edition, they branched off in 1990 and went off and did their own thing.
Christina: They were sort of forced to branch off.
Miguel: They were, but they were able to make the best out of a bad situation and created the album Poison. I would say the definitive New Jack Swing album of that era, they had hits like “Poison,” “Do Me!,” “I Thought It Was Me,” they were everywhere. They basically put together R&B with hip hop swagger, and that was the total opposite of everything that New Edition was.
Christina: And there wasn't really a lot of other people doing it at the time. Like, even though Bobby Brown, for example, is doing New Jack Swing, it didn't really have like, the hip hop style to it.
Miguel: The production wasn't hip hop.
Christina: So then as the lifelong New Edition fan between the two of us,
Miguel: That would be me.
Christina: How would you define their roles in New Edition?
Miguel: I think everybody would agree that they were just kind of like, the backup guys in New Edition. Occasionally, Ricky would get a lead and Mike and Ronnie would get their little eight bars each to just throw in the middle of these songs. But they weren't the stars of the group.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: It was always Ralph. Everybody wanted Ralph.
Christina: Everybody wanted Ralph.
Miguel: So they were like, like I said, they were the guys that filled in the gaps.
Christina: What I do like though, even though they were like, the backup guys, you still have, knew everybody's names.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Like there was always a lot of “Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike.”
Miguel: They made it a point to include everybody. They just didn't get as much like—
Christina: Solo time or lead time. They weren't leads.
Miguel: Yeah. So what were your thoughts on the Poison album once you heard it?
Christina: I mean, they just came out the gate with a powerhouse single. You know, here are these, the backup guys basically coming out with a powerhouse single that didn't ride the coattails of New Edition.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina Like, something that just sounded completely different. But for me at the time, it was just a bop with no prior expectations. Because I was like, I don't know who these guys are, right?
Miguel: Right.
Christina: So, yeah, it was just like, catchy. The drums at the beginning, there's that podcast you showed me, the One Song and Tank was the guest on it. And he said that those drums is a call to action.[1]
Miguel: Yes, it is.
Christina: It is because it's one of those, you know, there's a handful of songs where you just hear like, two seconds and you just drop whatever you do and run to the dance floor.
Miguel: And this is one of them.
Christina: Yeah. And then you get this call to action at the beginning and it just keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. And then it ends with Ricky Bell just crooning at the end. It's kind of like, we're done now.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Closing it out. It's like, curtains are coming down.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: Now that you're good and sweaty, you can, you know, let that heart rate go back down a little bit.
Miguel: Yeah, I tried to remember when I heard it for the first time. So it would have to have been either on KDAY and hearing it there or seeing the video. I don't remember which one it was. But either way, I was all in. Because I was in ninth grade, getting ready to graduate junior high. And this is still the time when we were dancing real hard, like 14, 15 year olds. This is what we did was dance.
Christina: Right.
Miguel: And I just remember like, a lunchtime school dance, wearing a rayon shirt and matching pants with patent leather shoes on and trying to copy the dance steps. But yeah, it just ticked all the boxes of what I was into at the time. It was aggressive sounding production and you had your little raps in it, but they were still singing too. It kind of reminded me of the Heart Break-era New Edition, but a little harder and a little more aggressive.
Christina: I don't remember if I heard the song first or heard it with the video, but the video was so important to the song as well because then you could see the style. You get a visual of what this song is supposed to look like. You get a visual of what the song feels like. So that was just like, really like, whenever I think of the song, I have to think of the video too.
Miguel: And in the video, they weren't doing this, the style of dance that they were doing with New Edition either.
Christina: Right. Like this was the two steps and—
Miguel: Right. Like we're The Temptations and we're all going to be on point.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: Everybody's wearing the same clothes. No, this was like club dancing and they had their four backup dancers with them. So it was very like, street.
Christina: There was something funny that Tank said too about it. I think I wrote down his quote. He said they went from can you stand the rain to can you sell drugs in the rain?
Miguel: Oh, man. Yeah, that makes sense.
Christina: Because he was like, you know, they're dancing in the stairwells. They're dancing in like, this back alley. They're dancing in a club, everywhere. But everything's like, dark and gritty at the same time.
Miguel: And the clothes were of what people were wearing at the time. Unlike a three piece suit with glitter down the side. That wasn't realistic.
Christina: Yeah, you had the combination of the girl dancers basically wearing the hip hop style clothing. And then you have the other girls in the video who, I mean, they they look like prostitutes.
Miguel: I'm not going to go that far.
Christina: Lady in fancy clothes. I think the problem is because they had them standing in the alleyways and just loitering in front of doors and stairs and stuff where it's like, I don't know what woman is out on the street at night like this by herself. But they had, they were sexy and more, I guess, like, quote unquote street or like, everyday urban rather than very upscale club.
Miguel: Right. So since you heard Bell Biv DeVoe first before hearing New Edition, how did listening to Bobby Brown and BBD kind of frame your thoughts on New Edition when you worked your way back listening to their catalog?
Christina: Well, I had heard pretty much all of them, not just BBD and Bobby Brown. I like I remember hearing like Ralph and Johnny around all the same time before I realized they were, used to be one group.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Because, you know, “Sensitivity” came out not too long after that. And like, Johnny had his “My, My, My” and all that. Like, the way I remember it is I knew them all separately first.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: I remember hearing “If it Isn't Love.” And I can't remember how I figured out that it was them. But I remember there was a point where I was like, wait a minute, this is these guys. And they used to be a group?
Miguel: Was it the “Word to the Mutha!” remix video[2] with all of them in it?
Christina: I don't know. You know, it might have been that. It might have been even just learning— because Boyz II Men came out ’92.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Right. So it might have even been learning Boyz II Men's origin story, how they like, approached Michael Bivins and their name Boyz II Men because of the New Edition “Boys to Men” song.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: So it could have been that as well. I'm not really sure how I realized it, but I remember like, my mind being blown when I realized that like, all these separate artists and groups that I like, used to be like a super group basically. Right. But I think because my intro to New Edition was like, “If It Isn’t Love,” I wasn't that surprised at the music part of it. It was just more like, oh, these guys used to all be together. Yeah. Because that album wasn’t, even though it was different from what they were doing, it wasn't like, completely different.
Miguel: Yeah. It wasn't that far off. It was just a more updated version of what they had done previously.
Christina: Especially like Ralph was doing stuff that was more similar and stuff. But I think for me, the shocking part was knowing that they had been doing this since they were little kids. So like, finding like, the “Candy Girl” stuff, like, now that was crazy. Yeah.
Miguel: I could see looking at “Do Me!” and then going back and looking at “Candy Girl.”
Christina: Right.
Miguel: And being like, well, wait a minute.
Christina: “Bobby, Ricky Mike.” And I'm like, wait a minute. They've been doing this “Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike” thing since the early ‘80s?
Miguel: Since the beginning, they're always going to let you know who's on the record. So who's in the group?
Christina: Yeah. That part was like, what?
Miguel: That's funny. All right. I think that's a good time for us to take a break and then we'll come back and get into the Poison album.
Christina: Okay.
Miguel: Hi, kids. Do you like fun?
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: And bookmarking a bunch of articles you'll probably never read. We're starting a monthly newsletter called Liner Notes. We'll be sharing what we're watching, what we're listening to, throwback YouTube videos, updates on our upcoming projects, random shit you may have missed on the internet, you know, stuff like that. The link is in the show notes or you can go to troypodcast.com/newsletter. Do it. It's good for you.
Christina: It'll make you teeth whiter.
Miguel: And back to the show.
OK, we are back. And now we're going to get into the Poison album itself. It's crazy to think about that album coming out 35 years ago.
Christina: I know.
Miguel: It's the 35th anniversary this week, and that's what made us decide to talk about Bell Biv DeVoe. 35 years. That's crazy. I was in junior high school.
Christina: 35 years ago. This was released and we just went to go see them last year.
Miguel: Yes. For the first time.
Christina: Well, technically second time for me. But—
Miguel: But you went to see New Edition.
Christina: Yes.
Miguel: And got Bell Biv DeVoe instead.
Christina: Bascially. Bell Biv DeVoe plus Johnny.
Miguel: Yeah. Oh, anyway.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: What were your favorite songs on the album?
Christina: Well, I instinctively don't want to say “Poison” because it just seems too obvious.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: But at the same time, I think it just has to be “Poison.”
Miguel: Yeah, because that's the definitive song of their career.
Christina: Right. And you know how like, you had said this, I believe, last episode when we were talking about Neo Soul. How even though Neo Soul kind of borrowed off of like, the previous generation's R&B, like, that felt like it was for us. And I think “Poison” and this album and this new sound that BBD made was like, yes, this is ours. And I think for me, because I was younger than you at the time when it came out, I was, I don't know, I can't do the math, like preteen, 12. I think I was 12 going on 13. For me, this was also definitive of what my personal style was going to be.
This wasn't like, dictated from what I was just hearing on the Top 40 radio or whatever my sisters were listening to. I'm like, this is my choice. This is what I like, no matter what other people around me like or what's popular. So for me, it was like, the song is definitive of their career, but it's also quite definitive of my own taste. What would become that. So “Poison,” I guess, has to be the favorite song because that was the intro. Then I think it depends, it's hard for me to pick the second song because it depends on my mood. Because “When Will I See You Smile Again” is a great ballad.
Miguel: It is.
Christina: But then also “Do Me!” was another powerhouse bop. It wasn't quite as big as “Poison,” but it's up there.
Miguel: It is.
Christina: So I would say those two are probably in the running for number two, just depending on mood.
Miguel: Yeah, for me, I'm going to go with the same ones. “Poison,” obviously. I'm not going to say “When Will I See You Smile Again,” only because you couldn't dance to it. Like this is I'm going to slow dance with a girl, and we weren't allowed to do that at our school in junior high school. So that wasn't getting done. But all the up-tempo dancy stuff, that's what I was into. So “I Thought It Was Me,” “Poison,” “Do Me!,” “Dope!” And “Do Me!”, it was a little bit slower. But they had those really weird dance moves that they were doing in the video. So we could still mimic that as well.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: So those are all my favorites, the ones that you could dance to.
Christina: No, I still I think again, like I said, this was pretty definitive of what would become what I was going to like in my style and stuff. So it was like, oh, I got like, what do I like in terms of uptempo stuff?
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Oh, here comes the the yearning ballads.
Miguel: Which was like, a throwback to the New Edition stuff, because even in the video, they had the suits and the sequins and the choreographed steps where we're all doing the same moves. Whereas in the “Poison” video, there's a whole lot of hip thrusting.
Christina: Right.
Miguel: And Michael Bivins on the ground humping it.
Christina: Exactly. But for me, again, I had no, no expectations of what are they going to do post-New Edition. It was just like, oh, I got different styles to choose from. Different moves.
Miguel: And what's funny is, just thinking back on it, because the times were so different. It's not like we knew this was going to be a thing.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: “Poison” just showed up one day. It's not like there was this huge campaign. It was like, remember the other guys from New Edition? They're about to do something huge.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: It wasn't like that. It just showed up one day and smacked us all in the face. It was like, this is what we're doing now. Get on board.
Christina: So then what do you think made their music as BBD stand out versus what they did previously with New Edition? I mean, I guess you kind of said it already.
Miguel: Like we already said, it was a lot more aggressive. It was more hip hop based. It was a lot more danceable. Even though they were dancing in New Edition,
Christina: It was a different kind of dancing.
Miguel: It was one, two, three, four, point. One, two, three, four…
Christina: This kind of dancing is a lot more loose.
Miguel: Yeah, this is like, freestyle dancing or what you're going to be doing at a party or a club.
Christina: And it had more personality because I think what I really liked about the dancing of that era, which I've always talked about me wanting to be a fly girl and stuff, because even though everybody was doing the same left and rights and ups and downs, but everybody added their own style to it. So I think there was something very, I don't know, down to earth about it, that, I think that's what I liked. It just felt so natural.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: It’s like, this is just what we do. Like, let your body move to the beat and whatever happens, happens. We'll give you some guidance, but then you just do whatever feels right to you.
Miguel: Yeah. And at this point, we hadn't had The Chronic come out and we hadn't got too cool or too gangster to dance. It was still a thing where everybody was dancing. Like the hardest rappers were dancing. Like Big Daddy Kane, Heavy D, pretty much any rappers you could think of outside of Public Enemy and NWA.
Christina: They were still dancing.
Miguel: Yeah, they were still dancing. And that's what I liked about that era.
Christina: Yeah. But at the same time, again, I don't think they knew they were doing it. Even though everyone was still dancing, it was kind of like, the beginning of, but this is like, tougher.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: So like, they were dancing, but it wasn't quite as whimsical as some of the earlier New Jack swing that came like the year or so before, the couple years before.
Miguel: Do you recall any like, TV shows, award shows, video performances that really stand out?
Christina: I think for me, it was just, it was always “Poison.” Like, I was obsessed with the video.[3] I watched it so many times that I could see it in my head. I remember I was on the phone with my friend and she was watching it on TV. So I could hear it playing. I'm like, oh, this is the part where they do this. This is the part where they do that. And she's like, shut up, you were watching it too. I'm like, I'm not. Like, I could just, if I heard it, I can recall the exact scene. So I was just like, obsessed with it, which on the other hand, maybe because they would like pop back and forth between different scenes so much. I never actually memorized like, the whole choreo though, just like, little bits.
Miguel: Cause you could only see little chunks of it at a time.
Christina: Yeah. So that's probably why, but oh man, I was telling you about this earlier. I accidentally stumbled onto some TikTok “Poison” dance challenge.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: And I saw the most unseasoned choreo for it. I was disgusted. I literally had to go back and watch the original video to cleanse my eyes. I was like, so annoyed. I'm like, the material is there. Why did you try to come up with something else yourself?
Miguel: Because they don't know what to do with the material that's there. It's too difficult.
Christina: I don't even want to show you, but I might have to. It was—
Miguel: I want to see it.
Christina: It was so far gone from the original. Wasn't even just like, a bad take on the original. It was like, what the hell is this? Remember when the Harlem Shake trend came out and you're like, why did you call that the Harlem Shake? It's like that where you're just like, these two things are not connected at all. I think because the video and the style and the dancing had such an impact on me, I'm like, I can't believe y'all just erased the shit.
Miguel: Oh man, I want to see it.
Christina: That was that. But I think I was just so like, that video and like I said, everything that came with it was so impactful. Like, everything I remember is just basically “Poison.” Like, when they performed on Arsenio Hall[4] and just various award shows. And also like, it wasn't “Poison,” but they'd had a cameo on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air where they like, filmed the video.
Miguel: And they kept interrupting the filming.
Christina: Yeah, because they were doing dumb stuff, but it just kind of made me nostalgic for when singers and rappers and whatever were always making cameos on these different sitcoms, that was cute.
Miguel: Yeah, I can't remember any specific ones. I just remember seeing them everywhere. No matter what MTV show was on, Bell Biv DeVoe was on it. So, Club MTV, they're there. Yo! MTV Raps, they're there. Any shows that MTV was doing, they were there performing. And it was just, I don't understand how they were able to become so much bigger than New Edition. Like, the extra guys are now bigger than where they came from. And including Bobby, because he was one of the extra guys for a little while, even though he got more leads than Ricky did, he was the biggest of them all. And the Poison album is the second biggest selling thing in the history of New Edition, including all of their albums and everyone's solo albums. Don't Be Cruel is number one, Poison is number two.
Christina: Interesting. I guess maybe even though they were the backup guys, they still had to learn the work ethics and the professional performance styles.
Miguel: Because like I mentioned earlier, the AMA performance when Ralph didn't show up five minutes beforehand.
Christina: Yeah, they were still able to pull it together.
Miguel: Yeah. And they said that they had never rehearsed that particular song before, and they made those steps up on the spot.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: And it doesn't look like it.
Christina: And you had Ricky, who all of a sudden had to sing lead.
Miguel: Yeah. And sing two different parts on the song, his and Ralph's.
Christina: Right.
Miguel: So that professionalism helped.
Christina: I think so.
Miguel: And them bringing something that we hadn't seen yet to the forefront. It was a perfect storm of everything. The song, their style and the three of them.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: Everything was supposed to be where it was at that particular time. And to the moon, it went.
Christina: I think also, even though, again, we keep saying that they were, you know, the backup guys. And even they said that about themselves. It's not like they were talentless.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: Like, it wasn't just like, oh, we're just kind of have them here for aesthetics.
Miguel: Yeah. Which we have seen in a lot of groups.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: Where there’s literally one singer and everybody else is just waving their hands in the background. Like, they're not even singing background vocals.
Christina: Yeah. So I guess that helped that like, hey, you know what? Ricky can actually sing.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: And Ronnie and Michael, I mean, I wouldn't call them like, lyricists. They rap well enough.
Miguel: They do what they need to do.
Christina: Performance rap.
Miguel: Yeah, exactly.
Christina: And they give you, you know, it's catchy enough to like, sing along to.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: Like, you're partying to.
Miguel: So you're never going to want a Ronnie DeVoe solo album.
Christina: Right.
Miguel: But he can get these raps off in the context of New Edition and BBD.
Christina: Like, it worked. Everything just kind of worked.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: And I think also the production helped where they understood, I don't want to call it limitations. They understood their strengths, let's put it that way, that they produced it in a way where you didn't push them outside of what they could do.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: But then you highlighted what they could do.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Because I didn't quite finish the article, but the one you sent me where they talked to the production team, The Bomb Squad. Yeah. And one of them was just explaining about how when they were crafting the melodies of how they set it up. And it'll make more sense if you read the article.
Miguel: And we can link to it.[5]
Christina: Yeah. But just knowing what their strengths were and how to craft the song around that, I think obviously really helped that they had good production on top of it, too.
Miguel: And the fact that they're being produced by The Bomb Squad to do an R&B album makes no sense. For those of you who don't know, The Bomb Squad are the production team[6] behind Public Enemy. So, imagine the chaos and the noise and the loudness of a Public Enemy record, and now they're doing an R&B song. It seems like a weird mix, but it worked.
Christina: Well, I was going to mention this later, but I think it kind of makes sense to bring it up now. Like, having The Bomb Squad, I'm sure, is probably one of the main reasons why they were able to craft this new sound. Because something else I was reading was just talking about the difference between Boys II Men's first album and second album. Because, you know, the first album was Michael Bivins basically crafting them to be them, part two, in a way. And then once Babyface got a hold of them, it went in a completely different direction. So that could have been them if they were working with The Bomb Squad versus Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. So I would say that The Bomb Squad also has a lot to do with this.
Miguel: Yes. And since we're talking about the album, we have to talk about “Do Me!”.
Christina: I feel like we've talked about this so many times.
Miguel: We have. And we have to talk about it again, because it's just so—
Christina: Egregious.
Miguel: Egregious. We have to talk about it. You know what? You're right. We've talked about it enough.
Christina: What I will say though, yeah, I feel like we've talked about it a lot, but what I don't think we've talked about actually, is how harsh the “she's a loser” part is in “Poison.” I think because we're so focused on the “Backstage, underage, adolescent,” that we forget “she's a loser. I know she's a loser.”
Miguel: “She's a winner to you, but I know she's a loser.”
Christina: “Me and the crew used to do her.”
Miguel: Yeah, I had never thought about that until watching the One Song podcast with Tank. And he pointed that out and was like, you know what?
Christina: That's harsh.
Miguel: That's a bit much.
Christina: Yeah, I did always, like, I remember even back then, I think because, you know, again, I was young. Like, I knew what they were saying, but I didn't really understand it. Like, 12, 13 year old hearing about “me and the crew used to do her.” It's like, you know, you don't, your little brain doesn't quite, yeah, you don't know how to process that, but it did always stand out to me and how he was like, “she's a loser.” Like, it was so-
Miguel: See, I was more focused on the “me and the crew used to do her” part.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: And completely missing her getting called a loser.
Christina: And I think it was like one of those things where it's like, I heard it, but like, I pretended I didn't hear it.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Like, ah, that's, they didn't say what I thought. They said something else. And you just like, you just kind of like, oh, it's just catchy “me and the crew used to do her”. Like, you're just thinking of it as a rhyme rather than listening to what they're saying. But then I can't remember at what point I was like, this is kind of, this is pretty mean, actually.
Miguel: Yeah, it didn't hit me till like, six months ago when I watched that episode.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: Like, damn, they did call her a loser.
Christina: Yep. “She's a winner to you.”
Miguel: To you. But I know she's a loser.
Christina: But yeah, Tank was like, I don't think she's a loser. She's a young lady who knows what she wants. Yeah. So that part, I don't think we've ever really talked about.
Miguel: She's a loser.
Christina: But we're still dancing.
Miguel: We are. 35 years later.
Christina: Because that’s what we do.
Miguel: Exactly. All right. So this is another spot for us to take a break and we'll be back.
[break]
Miguel: Okay, we are back. And now I want to ask you about their fusion of hip hop and R&B, and how it influenced both genres, and the way people made music. Which artists or groups from this era do you feel, and I'm using quotes, “borrowed” from Bell Biv DeVoe?
Christina: Well, I sort of mentioned this already, but my favorite version of Boyz II Men, which is the first album, Cooleyhighharmony, which, I mean, obviously they would borrow since they came from Michael Bivins. So that would make sense. I feel like maybe the second “he who will not be named” was influenced by this when he was putting together the look and style for Jodeci and Mary J. Blige.
Miguel: Yeah, because if you look at their early videos—
Christina: He basically just took the New Jack Swing out.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: But then, well, Jodeci did a little bit of New Jack Swing in the first album.
Miguel: Like they took everything that BBD was doing and made it all black. They took the color out of it.
Christina: Took the color out of it. Yeah. And kind of like dimmed it. No, not dimmed. Not a good word, but roughed it out a little.
Miguel: It made it more emo. Because if you look at it—
Christina: A little more gritty.
Miguel: Yeah. You look at Mary's first video and she's wearing silver. You look at the video she was doing with Father MC. She was wearing silver.
Christina: Silver.
Miguel: Yeah, she had on like a silver top in both of those videos.
Christina: I remember black.
Miguel: Well, there was a scene where she was wearing silver. It wasn't always all black. That's what I mean. And Jodeci's first couple of videos, they're wearing HBCU hoodies. And even on the album cover, they're wearing the hoodies and the starter jackets in the different colors.
Christina: And even in “Forever My Lady,” they're wearing like the flowy white shorts and stuff. But the shorts were like long and loose and baggy.
Miguel: So that was borrowed from BBD, in my opinion.
Christina: It just basically like, it was just like, well, we're not really doing that New Jack Swing stuff anymore, but we're keeping the hip hop swag.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: So them and then TLC and Fugees with the idea of like combining rappers and singers in a group.
Miguel: Yeah. So I was going to say TLC. Like, they're the biggest culprits in this. They took the entire BBD formula and repackaged it with women, but they flipped it. They had two singers and one rapper, but it's the same concept.
Christina: But even though they had two singers, I feel like T-Boz was kind of like the bridge between the singing and the rapping.
Miguel: Yeah. So they were the biggest, I think, like I don't want to call them copycats, but the biggest ones who were influenced by BBD. And BBD had some Dallas Austin production, which he then transferred over to TLC. So that makes sense as well.
Christina: Yeah, I don't think that it's quite as obvious. Like when you see other male or female R&B groups, you can kind of trace them back to specific groups like Jodeci and Boyz II Men and TLC. Everything that came after that kind of all sounded like them in a certain way. So I think with BBD it's not as obvious, but I think they like planted the seed. Yeah, that's pretty much what it was. What grew out of it was slightly different, but—
Miguel: That's where it started.
Christina: Yeah, because I think with BBD's first album, it was the time it came out was unique. It was just before the music changed.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: So if maybe the music had changed a couple of years after that, we would have had more people who sounded a little more closely to BBD.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: But because they came out and then The Chronic came out, and then that kind of like shifted everything to be a little more gritty.
Miguel: Yeah, like we ain't dancing no more. Everybody get a ’64 Impala and throw on a Dickies suit. That's what we are now.
Christina: Yeah. And then how even like a lot of the R&B soul music that came out of that had to thump still.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Because it's like, you know, we're still going to do the R&B and the soul, but it has to play well for the gangsters in the cars.
Miguel: Right. Exactly. So how do you feel about their other albums?
Christina: Well, Hootie Mack was the one that came after, like, two years after something like that?
Miguel: Yes. Three.
Christina: Three years.
Miguel: Came out in ’93.
Christina: Aside from something in her ey—“Something in Your Eyes,” “Something in Your Eyes,” her eyes? I can't remember whose eyes.
Miguel: “Something in Your Eyes.”
Christina: Your eyes. The rest of the album—uh, “Above the Rim” was OK, but the rest of the album was kind of like meh, for me.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Like even now, I always forget that "Something in Your Eyes" was on this album and not on the first album.
Miguel: Because when I was listening to Poison the other day, I'm like, where is "Something in Your Eyes"? Like, I know it was at the end of an album, but I thought it was on Poison.
Christina: Same. I forget that all the time.
Miguel: Yeah, because it doesn't fit on Hootie Mack. And we were talking about it yesterday. And I didn't realize that The Chronic had come out before Hootie Mack. I thought it had come out after, like right after, until you brought it up. And then I started listening to it. Like, yeah, they were trying to do The Chronic, but a hip hop or an R&B version of it.
Christina: And they were talking about how they were literally just smoking weed all the time.
Miguel: Right. The album was called Hootie Mack.
Christina: Yeah. I think also, like, this album, you can kind of hear the difference when you're creating a new style versus—
Miguel: When you're trying to copy.
Christina: Yeah. Because and also, like what I was saying before, it's kind of like you have to know your strengths. So it's one thing to be like a hip hop kid and you're into rap music and hip hop culture. It's another thing to be like gangster rap.
Miguel: Yeah. Like, that's not you.
Christina: You can't just be like, oh, I like rap and hip hop music, so I can automatically make gangster rap music. It's like, no, that's a different. It's a different style. You can't just become a gangster rapper now.
Miguel: It's a different transition from you going from “Candy Girl” to “Can You Stand The Rain?” and “If It Isn’t Love” to “Poison” to I'm smoking weed and I'm out here in the hood all the time. Like, we know y'all.
Christina: “Inhale, exhale with my flow.”
Miguel: We've literally watched you grow up from 12 years old to whatever you are now.
Christina: You can smoke weed and you can have, you know, listen to rap, but that doesn't make you a gangster. .
Miguel: Yeah, exactly. That's not you. And we we could see it. Yeah, like there were a couple songs that were OK just because of the production. Yeah, but it's like y'all doing too much now.
Christina: Like listening to the album, it wasn't like, you know, this is awful, but it was just not standout. And the only reason why "Something in Your Eyes" was because it sounded like it should have been on the first album.
Miguel: Right, exactly. Because I'm listening to it and I wrote some notes here and I put the album would have been better if it had taken off two of the other type of songs and put two more "Something in Your Eyes.”
Christina: Yeah, so at least you can get like a handful of songs. Like the whole album doesn't have to be good, but you can give me like three, three, four tracks. Like even “Above the Rim” is not the best song, but like that was catchy.
Miguel: Right, it makes sense. It was what they were doing.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: But “Nickel,” no, that's not you.
Something I will say, just watching all of their videos over the past couple of days, the videos for this album, you can tell that they had gone to super stardom because the difference between them performing with New Edition to the first album, those sets of videos, you could see the confidence growing in them. But from the Poison album to this one, go back and watch those videos. Michael Bivins was wilding and all of them. This man was on fire. I have never seen Michael Bivins dancing as much as he was once he knows, oh, I got the spotlight on me now. I'm getting it in.
Christina: I'm in the front. I'm not in the back.
Miguel: Yes, the “Gangsta” video.[7] It's just Ricky and Ronnie for the first two thirds of the video. And then Michael comes in, he does his rap. And from that point forward is the Michael Bivins show. Every time they cut to a dance scene, he's right in the front.
Christina: OK. I have to go back and look at it.
Miguel: Yeah, I was laughing my ass off that one and another one. I can't remember what the other one was, but he was just giving it. Like, who is this guy? So that made me laugh.
Christina: That's funny.
Miguel: The BBD album I've never heard.
Christina: I don't even remember it, to be honest. I don't know any of the songs. I'm not even sure if I knew it existed when it came out.
Miguel: I knew it did, but never heard.
Christina: I don't remember. I do not remember this at all.
Miguel: So I haven't listened to that. So I'm planning on listening to it. I didn't listen to that one, but I did listen to Three Stripes when it first came out.
Christina: Yes, because it came out right after the biopic came out, which was like, I'm sure they did this on purpose, but it was great timing because the biopic was actually really good and we were all riding high off of it. So I was like, what? New music?
Miguel: Yeah. So I remember listening to that one and it was solid. It wasn't a bad album. It wasn't as great as Poison, but it was definitely better than Hootie Mack.
Christina: Oh, yes.
Miguel: And I can't say what the BBD album was because I haven't heard it yet.
Christina: Like if this album came out after Poison, I think it would have been a good sophomore.
Miguel: Yeah. And this was 30 plus years after their first album with New Edition.
Christina: So 2017.
Miguel: Yeah. So they were able to put together a solid album.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: Yeah. I just liked it a lot better than Hootie Mack.
Christina: I think because like they went back to like, the BBD formula.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: It's like, not too hard, not too soft. Just like Boyz II Men used to be and now they're just soft. But this is not a Boyz II Men episode.
Miguel: It is not.
Christina: But anyways, yeah, it just it sounded like, OK, this is this is the lane that BBD works in. Right. Yeah, I really liked “I’m Betta”. And I think that was the first single.
Miguel: OK. I don't remember which one was first because I remember that's the one with “Run” on it. Right.
Christina: Yes.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Yeah. I like that one too. And “Hot Damn.”
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: But yeah, this was, like I said already, it's the BBD formula.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: It's danceable. You let Ricky sing a little bit. You let the other two rap a little bit and then you just groove in between.
Miguel: And they've had a couple other singles, just one offs here and there that they've done over the years without putting on an album. The one that I really like is the one with Rev Run on it. It's “Act Like You Know.”[8] I think it came out last year when Michael Bivins did his documentary.[9]
Christina: I'm not sure if I've heard it or maybe I just don't remember.
Miguel: Yeah, it has a Sugarhill Gang “Apache” sample.
Christina: Okay.
Miguel: And you got Rev Run on it and you got them on it. And it's a BBD song basically. And this is a sidebar. But you know how I'm always talking about how when you're great at something, you will always be great at it. I haven't heard Rev Run rap in who knows how long. And I can't confirm that he wrote this verse. I don't know. But even if someone else wrote it, he is rapping his ass off on this record. And it just goes to show that when you are that good at something, it don't go away.
Christina: Right.
Miguel: This is a man who's in his 60s, probably just sitting on his couch, watching TV every day and decides, you know what? Let me go ahead and give these boys a little something. Let the streets know that old Joey Simmons is still alive. But yeah, he was rapping his ass off on this record. Like I said, I don't know if he wrote it. And even if he didn't write it, he rapped it. Because we know people have had songs written for him and they don't know how to do it.
Christina: Right.
Miguel: It sounds like shit. But yeah, Run was rapping.
Christina: I'll have to look it up because I can't remember if I heard—if I've heard it or not.
Miguel: I have.
Christina: Yes, you have.
So there are some songs, as we just discussed, that we did like on their other albums. And this question is not meant to be disrespectful, but do you look at them as like a one album wonder? Can we? Or is that unfair? Because sometimes when you just have a big hit, it's just hard to top that.
Miguel: Technically, they are one album wonders because that album was just so astronomically huge that you can't top it. Even if Hootie Mack was a better album, Poison was so big, it would always be Poison bigger than anything they've done and overshadow anything they've done. But the reason I won't call them one album wonders is because they had hit albums with New Edition. So technically, yes, but no at the same time. Yeah, that's my answer and I'm going to stick to it.
Christina: Yeah, I kind of feel like just because they came out at the cusp of the change of everything too. That's hard.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: Like you just created this new thing and now it's over.
Miguel: Yes, like two years later.
Christina: Like you can't even—yeah, like how are you supposed to come up with something after that?
Miguel: Right. And something else that goes along with it is they weren't able to like continue this New Jack Swing, “Hip hop smoothed out on the R&B tip,” whatever they were calling it because the music had changed. But at the same time, they were able to seamlessly slide right back into New Edition because the Home Again album was great.
Christina: Yeah, that was a really good album.
Miguel: And due to like their own personal influences, it didn't land the way it was supposed to because they couldn't fucking get along.
Christina: That was that was personnel issues, not music issues.
Miguel: The music itself was perfect and should have been what got them back to probably not the heights of Poison, but at least to the Heart Break album.
Christina: Yeah. And I guess their time as BBD also helped them evolve New Edition because now they weren't just the background guys anymore.
Miguel: Yeah, can't just push us to the side anymore. But yeah, that's what I feel about them.
Christina: Okay.
Miguel: And the one hit or the one album wonder of it all. I'm going to say technically yes, but no.
Christina: Okay.
Miguel: So why do you think the “Poison” song itself has lasted in pop culture for as long as it has?
Christina: Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, we could break down what an amazing song it is musically, because it is, and you can hear all that in the One Song podcast, which will explain it way better than I ever can because they're actually musicians. So I would definitely recommend watching that or listening to it because they really break down the song in terms of the musical genius that it is. But to me, I'm like, I don't know, because there are many great songs that don't last and many terrible songs that do last. So I don't really know why this is one of the ones that has not only lasted so long but has somehow managed to not become corny.
Miguel: Yeah, that’s the biggest thing.
Christina: You know, when something crosses over that much, at some point, you're just like, ugh.
Miguel: Yeah, it becomes a caricature of itself.
Christina: Yeah, because when I was watching the reaction to, what's his name, I keep forgetting, on Scrubs?
Miguel: Oh, Donald Faison.
Christina: Donald Faison dancing to it on Scrubs[10] and how that dance became part of Fortnite and stuff. It's reached a completely different audience.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: But I don't cringe. Still, it's not just like, ugh, “This is how we do it.”
Miguel: Right.
Christina: It's like every time the [mimics opening beats of “Poisen”]. Every time. I'm still like…it's the call to action.
Miguel: Yeah, it is.
Christina: It doesn't matter where I hear it, what context I hear it, what people have done with it. It somehow is still fresh and exciting. And I don't, I can't really explain why.
Miguel: The only thing I can come up with, because I don't have an explanation for it either, is one, it has very catchy lines in it. When Ricky goes into the, “it's driving me…” that gives people something to sing along with.
Christina: Yeah. “Never trust a big butt and a smile.”
Miguel: “Never trust a big butt and a smile.”
Christina: Even though they weren't the first people to say that.
Miguel: Yeah. So that portion is a call back to Boogie Down Productions saying it. So if you were a hip hop head, you would like, oh, I know this reference, that's Boogie Down Productions. And even if you don't know that reference, “Never trust a big butt and a smile,”[11] that has now given every woman with a big butt and a nice smile a slogan.
Christina: Exactly.
Miguel: So you've got that, you've got catchy lines. It's probably the most perfect pop song ever.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: And it came out at the exact moment that it was supposed to come out and hit all of us the way that it did. And we have kept it going as long as we have. And I guess recipes are being handed down because the song is still popular to this day.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: And that's all I got. I can't come up with anything else other than it was the perfect song that came out at the perfect time.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: And hit the perfect people.
Christina: I still need to show you how the raisins were added to it with that damn dance challenge.
Miguel: I can't say anything about that.
Christina: I'm disgusted even thinking about it.
Miguel: That I have no comments on. But that song lasting for 35 years now. That's all I can come up with. Catchy lines, quotables, it's a bop. You can dance to it. The drums are your call to action, as Tank said, and yeah, it's perfect.
Christina: One of them ones.
Miguel: Yeah. And it will always be that.
Christina: Yeah. I'm not tired of it.
Miguel: No, not at all.
Christina: I've listened to it so many times just over the past like, two days.
Miguel: And you're not tired of it?
Christina: No, I like to put it on right now and I'll probably start dancing. Give you a shoulder shimmy or something.
Miguel: I will say that at the end of Michael's verse and the beat drops out and it's almost a cappella and it's just Ricky in the bass line. That's the chef's kiss.
Christina: Yes.
Miguel: And then it comes back in and hits you on the ass on the way out of the door.
Christina: Giving you a moment to catch your breath.
Miguel: Yes.
Christina: And then I think my favorite is the [mimics song] at the end. That's like the perfect closing.
Miguel: There's a Big Daddy Kane song that samples just that part.
Christina: OK.
Miguel: And it just loops throughout the whole song.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: Big Daddy Kane song called “Taste of Chocolate.”[12] And it's just Ricky looped over and over again. I'll play it for you when we're done.
Christina: OK.
Miguel: So with all that said, what are your thoughts on where they are right now at this stage of their careers?
Christina: I will say that despite all the downs they had in between, they managed to age gracefully. Like their performance skills, like specifically BBD. You know, Johnny was never much of a dancer. Johnny and Ralph, they weren't really dancers. And, you know, Bobby has his thing.
Miguel: Yeah, Bobby's old now.
Christina: Yes.
Miguel: The knees don't work the way they used to.
Christina: These three, though, their knees work.
Miguel: They do.
Christina: And, like, it's shocking at how good they're still able to sing and dance and perform at this age. And, like I said, they've all been through a lot personally, too. So I think that where they are at their stage in their careers, like, this is the second act.
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: But, like, I think with how many decades have passed, like, they're flying high still.
Miguel: Right.
Christina: And I really enjoyed the performance. You, obviousl did, you want to, we were trying to figure out how we were going to go back, but...
Miguel: I wanted to see them again.
Christina: The tickets had gone up even more. Hundreds of dollars. We would have to go back out to Vegas again.
Miguel: The what is it called? The residency.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: It's still going on.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: In Vegas.
Christina: So their performance skills are amazing.
Miguel: They just announced new shows coming up in the next couple of months in Vegas. So I might have to go back out there.
Christina: Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. These ticket prices.
Miguel: I make no promises, but if they come.
Christina: It's definitely worth it, though.
Miguel: If they definitely come closer to Toronto.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: I'm going to make the effort.
Christina: Yeah. Like if you can and if you can afford it, like go do it. Like it's quote unquote a nostalgia act, but it doesn't really feel like it because their performances are still really good.
Miguel: Yeah. And they're probably in the best position they've ever been in because they are a nostalgia act that can tour off of the old stuff. But still occasionally drop the song in there like they did last year with Rev Run. And like you said, the New Edition residency was really, really good. And with BBD, they supplement everybody's parts.
Christina: Yes.
Miguel: Like they do background for Bobby in there, his backing dancers. They did it with Johnny. They didn't do it with Ralph because they didn't, he didn't perform like his up tempo stuff.
Christina: Yeah, he just did like the, let's bring out the roses.
Miguel: Yeah, they dropped the sheer curtain down when Ralph came out.
Christina: They didn't need them to be back there dancing.
Miguel: So they didn't need them to do that, but they were backing Johnny and Bobby up. And then they come out and do their own sets.
Christina: With no breaks.
Miguel: In between.
Christina: Sometimes they didn't get any, because I can't remember which one of them said it, but said something about, I've been performing for five songs in a row.
Miguel: I think it was Ronnie.
Christina: Okay.
Miguel: But they did finally leave the stage and leave Ricky out there to do like his solo stuff. Like, well, “When Will I See You Smile Again?” So they got a breather then.
Christina: Ricky didn't though, because he still had to sing.
Miguel: He had to stay out there.
Christina: Yeah.
Miguel: But yeah, it's a good show if you haven't seen it and you can make your way out to Vegas or if they come to where you are, check out New Edition.
Christina: Yeah, it's definitely worth it.
Miguel: Because they're not shooting at each other on stage anymore.
Christina: Yes, they've worked out how they can all be stars at the same time.
Miguel: It's a really good show. So go check it out. If you want to look at some videos before you go, go to our YouTube channel. We've posted some of the videos from the concert as well.[13]
Christina: So you can get an idea of what you're paying for.
Miguel: Yeah. All right. I think that pretty much wraps up the Bell Biv DeVoe experience.
Christina: I think so.
Miguel: Do you have anything else you want to say before we get out of here?
Christina: Let's see if I forgot anything that's worth bringing up. I did think of something while we were on break.
Miguel: Okay.
Christina: When we were talking about the “she's a loser” part and how we hear these things, but we just kind of like brush them off. I think sort of perhaps this might explain things, especially for a young developing mind. Sometimes negative words are actually good things. Like if you see a girl and you're like, she's bad, she's not bad. That's a good thing. So I don't know.
Miguel: I see where you're going with this and I don't know if we can apply that.
Christina: Well, not the loser. The loser can only mean loser. But just thinking of even the song talking about this woman is poison. She's poison. Never trust a big butt and a smile.
Miguel: That part makes sense. Yeah, she's poison, but I still want it.
Christina: Yeah. So I don't know if maybe that is what helps you just kind of like close your ears to some of the other stuff.
Miguel: “She's dangerous.”
Christina: Exactly. You're like, whatever. You say she's a loser, but you're still chasing her.
Miguel: Yeah. So that part, I'll go with it. OK.
Christina: So yeah.
Miguel: I get you. Yeah, I don't have anything else to add other than to say, go watch the Hootie Mack era video. So above the rim and gangsta specifically to just see Michael Bivins—
Christina: Show up and show out.
Miguel: Giving his all. It's hilarious.
Christina: Oh, that just made me think of Wanya in the “I Can't Let Her Go” video.
Miguel: Oh, yeah.
Christina: He finally got a chance to dance hard.[14]
Miguel: He put that that T-shirt around his neck and chest out.
Christina: It was all over. He was like, fuck these ballads. Let me get out here and show you what I can do.
Miguel: There was a whole bunch of Wanya body rolling.
Christina: Body rolling up and down. And of course, you can’t—those neck—
Miguel: Yeah.
Christina: The the little neck circles and stuff he does is rare form.
Miguel: So if you like that, you're going to like what Mike was doing at the end of this video. And it's real quick too.
Christina: Okay.
Miguel: That's all I got though.
Christina: All right. I think that's good.
Miguel: Yeah. So thank you again for listening to They Reminisce Over You. We do this every two weeks. So make sure to come back and check us out on our next episode and we'll pop up in your inbox, in your notifications, on your podcast, apps, all that good stuff.
Christina: And on YouTube.
Miguel: On YouTube as well. Also sign up for our monthly newsletter. It's called Liner Notes. It comes out sometime between the first and the third of every month, depending on what day the third or the first is. It's free, so you don't have to pay anything for it. We won't sell your information to anybody. It's just a way for us to give you some extra content once a month. It's fun.
Christina: And updates.
Miguel: Updates on what we're doing. All that good stuff. So sign up for that at troypodcast.com/newsletter. Also, we have a store where you can purchase merch. It's called Nuthin’ But a Tee Thang. See what we did there. Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang. Nuthin’ But a Tee Thang. We're smart. You can go there and buy yourself some merch, t-shirts, hats, hoodies. All that good stuff at teethang.com. T-E-E-T-H-A-N-G dot com. We will be putting up a Bell Biv DeVoe playlist on our website, so you can go check that out.
Christina: And it will include songs that's not just on the Poison album.
Miguel: Yes. So we will be adding a lot of Bell Biv DeVoe stuff or Bell Biv DeVoe influenced stuff on this playlist. Go check that out as well. Help get you through your work day. That's it. Oh!
Christina: Time to eat.
Miguel: That's all I got. So we're going to wrap this up because someone's stomach is growling and…
Christina: It happens.
Miguel: We'll be getting in your ear holes in two weeks. Bye.
Christina: Bye.