Wokie and his partner Timmy Gatling were fresh off producing sophisticated R&B singer Christopher Williams when Silas asked them to record with BBD. “Louil wanted to have them back in suits like they were still in New Edition,” remembered producer Alton “Wokie” Stewart. Louil Silas Jr., the executive VP of black music at MCA Records, did not want Bell Biv DeVoe to make a rap record. As the New Edition tour was ending in the summer of 1989, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis suggested they start a trio: Bell, Bivins, and DeVoe. He had played his role for seven years, but now that Tresvant and Johnny Gill were going solo, the questions had started: What are you gonna do? Bell and DeVoe were in the same position. This is what gave the group their visual look.”Īt the 1989 Soul Train Awards, New Edition took the stage wearing grown-and-sexy tailored suits-except for Bivins, who was rocking a gold chain, green baseball hat, and baggy green leather pants. They really brought out the hip-hop element by wearing Timberland boots and sagging pants. Michael brought it back to the street realm. “New Edition was all about wearing suits and dressing upscale.
He had a vision for the group,” said Hank Shocklee, leader of the Bomb Squad and the producer who would help shape Poison. “The engine for Bell Biv DeVoe was Michael Bivins. & Rakim’s gritty black-and-white video for “In the Ghetto,” walking down a dark alley with the God MC and his crew. In the song’s music video, Bivins rolls through the party with Heavy D as his wingman. Heartbreak,” Mike foreshadowed the BBD attitude with a more aggressive rap style: As New Edition grew from boys to men, embracing a sophisticated sound on their 1988 album Heart Break, Bivins was quietly establishing his hip-hop credibility. For better or worse, Bell Biv DeVoe set the stage for three decades of singers who want to talk, dress, and act like rappers.īack when he was only 14, Michael Bivins introduced himself to the world with a little rap on New Edition’s 1982 breakout hit “Candy Girl”: “She walks so fast, she looks so sweet/She makes my heart just skip a beat.” The group made smiling, bubble-gum electro-pop, but Bivins had the cool confidence of a rapper, even if he was stuck singing background vocals most of the time. A collaboration with revered Public Enemy production crew the Bomb Squad, Poison embodied the style and sound of hip-hop in a more convincing way than any R&B album before it. You’ve heard “ Poison” too many times, probably at a wedding or a school dance or some perennially bad episode of “Carpool Karaoke.” But Bell Biv DeVoe is more than just a song, and their debut album represents a critical leap in the evolution of R&B. Ricky Bell spoke up: “You have to listen to the music to understand what we’re talking about.” The show’s host wasn’t sure what to make of it: “And like.what does that mean?” They talked about it in every interview, including that day on BET. BBD even had a neat little mission statement to explain their vision: “Our music is mentally hip-hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip with a pop feel appeal to it.” They stamped the slogan on their album cover and flashed it on screen during their videos. Poison was a conceptually groundbreaking pop album that reinvented the relationship between R&B and hip-hop for the ’90s. It was definitely Bell Biv DeVoe’s moment.
By the end of the year, Billboard would declare BBD the biggest new pop group of 1990. Their album, also called Poison, had just dropped, and it was on its way to selling 4 million copies. This was 1990, and the trio’s debut single “Poison” was on the verge of breaking into the Top 10. “Mike keeps stressing BBD-it’s not a BBD moment,” he said.
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