Bell Biv Devoe

After Bobby Brown left New Edition in 1986, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe, decided to get together, and in 1988, after New Edition's last tour, they recorded their debut album, which had an assload of different producers, including some from the Public Enemy camp.

Bell Biv DeVoe had recorded something much different than New Edition, more sex, predominantly. You may recall the video for their song "Poison," which was cool that it simply showed the legs of women in the background rather than the other, more boombastic, blatently exploitive videos of the day. Another hit was "Do Me!" which this noder is slightly glad that he cannot remember.

Their second real album, Hootie Mack, didn't fare as well as the first. In 1996, the members of this group reunited with the rest of New Edition. Aww. Albums:
1990: Poison
1991: WBBD-Bootcity!--Remix Album
1993: Hootie Mack

Bobby had left in 1986 (as mentioned above by danlowite) and had put out a number of albums. Then Johnny Gill released his highly successful album Johnny Gill on Motown in 1990. The final straw must have been the release later in 1990 on MCA records of Ralph Tresvant's self titled album, which spawned the single Sensitivity.

As they said on their remix album WBBD-Bootcity, "The three left alone on their own."

Faced with the realization that they didn't harbour enough talent individually to come out with successful solo joints, the formed BBD. Their philosophy was " Our music is mentally hip-hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip, with a pop feel appeal to it."

Their debut album Poison sold over 3.5 million copies.

On a personal note, it took me a long time to convince a shop keeper, any shop keeper to let me have/purchase a no-go wafer so that I could hang it off my jeans, just like on the remix album cover.