ON EPISODE #436 of the 1983–84 season, New Edition would make its first Soul Train appearance to perform “Candy Girl,” the hit single off their debut album on the independent Streetwise Records. The five Boston adolescents (Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant, Michael Bivins, Ronnie DeVoe, Ricky Bell) were adequate, singers—at best—but they had a scintillating stage show that married aspects of old-school Temptations-style choreography with hip-hop-generation dance steps. It was a unique blend that mirrored the pseudo-soul tracks produced by their mentor, Maurice Starr, which contained rap breaks and some beat-boxing. Only the most visionary Soul Train viewers could have imagined that they were watching not only a highly entertaining performance but a band that embodied the immediate future of black music. Over the course of the next ten years, R&B music would be sonically and thematically absorbed by hip-hop. First it would just be rap breaks on otherwise typical R&B tracks. But soon a generation of producers, born into older black music traditions but who came of age in the 1980s, would fuse the beats and samples of hip-hop onto sing-along melodies.
The men of New Edition—among them Bobby Brown, who was at the start of a hit- and headline-making career—would be messengers of the new movement. “Soul Train was probably the one show that I, for some reason, foresaw myself being on,” Brown said. “Being a dancer with New Edition, I told them, I was like, ‘One day, we’re gonna be on Soul Train,’ and all of them talked about me, they called me all kinds of names.”
The five came together through Boston talent shows where, under the guidance of choreographer Brooke Payne, they developed a dynamic stage show. “We were part of the dance-crew scene,” Brown said. “When hip-hop first got started and break-dancing and pop locking, we were there. I was the best dancer in all of Boston. When it came to battles, I won probably all of them. I only lost one battle ever in my life, and it wasn’t against somebody from Boston, it was against somebody from New York. So I still hold the title in Boston.”
Famously, New Edition invited Big Lou onstage with them, much to Don’s displeasure. Brown even made mistakes on that first performance because he was spending more time watching Big Lou than focusing on Payne’s routine. “Yes, I messed up a few times,” he acknowledged. “I was probably the one in New Edition that at least had four mess-ups per show. I think that’s probably why I went solo. Because I wanted to do my own thing anyway. I would sometimes do my own move on purpose, throw my own move in there, and the guys would laugh. That’s what it was about, us having fun onstage.”
New Edition’s members were so young that Cornelius asked the five what they planned to do with their money.
Brown: All of us guys were talking about, “I’m gonna save my money. I’m gonna put mine away for college.” I was just like I wanted to do with everything. I actually said, “I’m gonna spend mine.” Being on the Soul Train set, the vibe is cool. All the dancers are getting themselves together. It’s a real laid-back type of set, and then once the music starts, all hell breaks loose and everybody is just trying to do the best dance so that they can get camera time.
Brown, though barely out of puberty, made the women of Soul Train a focus of his dancing with the pelvic thrust that would become a trademark. He recalled gleefully, “Oh, the girls! They always reacted nicely. We liked that. You gotta throw a pump in there every once in a while doing a step. You throw in a pump to get the girls excited.”
Following that debut, New Edition would become the subject of a bidding war when they were able to escape their contract with small Streetwise Records. The quintet ended up on West Coast–based MCA Records, which was then becoming a major player in black music. While their original producer, Maurice Starr, went on to control the lucrative careers of New Kids on the Block, a white Boston teen group that utilized the same musical formula as New Edition, New Edition went on to have major hits with “Cool It Now” and “Mr. Telephone Man.”
Despite the new record deal and becoming the first vocal group with hip-hop appeal, there was great turmoil within the group. Three of the members remained a tight unit (Bivins, DeVoe, Bell) while Tresvant and—to a much greater degree—Brown were outliers. Brown didn’t just mess up steps on purpose; he was often late for appearances, group meetings, and shows. It all came to a head at the end of 1985 when Brown was voted out of New Edition. Signed as a solo act by MCA, Brown would release King of Stage, his debut album, in 1986. In retrospect it was a transitional album, as he worked to find his own voice as a singer. During this period he’d work on choreography with Rosie Perez and continue to refine his R&B/hip-hop hybrid.
By 1988, an inevitable fusion of R&B melody and hip-hop beats was labeled “new jack swing” by Village Voice writer Barry Michael Cooper. Acts like Keith Sweat and Al B. Sure! would beat Brown to the marketplace in 1988, but his Don’t Be Cruel album would sell some nine million copies and establish him as the hottest male entertainer of that era.
Brown: New jack swing is basically soulful hip-hop. It’s singing hip-hop. It is rap music with vocals. You put rap and singing together, and that’s what new jack swing is. Than it’s a real hard beat. It’s a banger for you. It’s something to dance to, and it’s got slick bass lines. I think we just basically took what Zapp, Gap Band, Parliament, Funkadelic did and we put it into a rap format and made it work.
Backed by new jack swing–pioneering producer-writer Teddy Riley and the West Coast–based team of Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and Antonio “L.A.” Reid, Don’t Be Cruel was one of the definitive albums of the time, and its success made it clear that new jack swing was the new direction for dance music. Soul Train was a happy home for new jack–influenced artists. The 1987–88 season featured Riley-produced MCs like Heavy D & the Boyz, Keith Sweat, Al B. Sure!, and Guy (which Riley was a member of). The last show of that taping season put the final stamp of new jack’s arrival with New Edition, Bobby Brown, and future Brown replacement Johnny Kemp on the same show. Throughout the next few seasons Boys, LeVert, Troop, Today, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Johnny Kemp, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Full Force, After 7, Jeff Redd, and many other acts with new jack swing records made regular appearances.
Some of the most innovative uses of the new style came from three of Brown’s old band mates. Bell Biv DeVoe released their debut album, Poison, in 1990, combining elements of new jack swing with a distinctive, idiosyncratic sound that spawned two massive hits, “Poison” and “Do Me Baby.” They had a rougher, more streetwise look than New Edition, one that would influence up-and-coming acts like Jodeci and R. Kelly and lead directly to the absence of the suit-and-tie look among that era’s vocalists. Bell Biv DeVoe appeared on Soul Train episode #628 during the 1989–90 season with a Bobby Brown video and, incongruously, soulful jazz singer Randy Crawford.
Bivins would, as he matured, become one of the more successful talent scouts of the 1990s, finding M.C. Brains, ABC (Another Bad Creation), and, most important, Boyz II Men, a Philadelphia quartet that would become the biggest pop vocal group of the decade. Brown’s recording career would sputter following Don’t Be Cruel, but he’d become tabloid fodder following his 1992 marriage to superstar singer Whitney Houston. In keeping with the Soul Train theme, the Brown-Houston romance got its start when they met at the 1989 Soul Train Awards.
New jack swing would be the last great innovation in R&B music before hip-hop became the mainstream of black pop music. Moreover, it would be the last big movement in the music he loved that Don would preside over as Soul Train’s host.