"They're all perfectionists and they each serve a purpose in the group."ĭespite their connections to the record industry, it would take B2K about four years to finally get their record deal on Epic. "We felt that the four together had a chemistry that I hadn't seen since TLC," said Max Gousse, who was instrumental in getting the group signed to Epic Records, where he's vice president of A&R. But they eventually became a quartet by dipping into IMX's gene pool again, this time with Omarion, Houston's half-brother.ī2K meaning Boys of the Millennium was born. With Lil Fizz (Dreux Frederic), the group was a trio for a while.
That group's manager, Chris Stokes, was looking to put together a new group and decided to keep it in the family: Raz B is his cousin, and another B2K member, J-Boog (Jarell Houston), is the cousin of IMX's lead singer, Marques Houston.
"No offence to them, because they were really really, like, dope in their time, but we want to be the new (group) that sets the trends for everybody else," he says.ī2K actually got its start following in the footsteps of another teen act the '90s R&B trio Immature, or IMX. Seventeen-year-old De'mario Thornton, who goes by the nickname Raz B, likens B2K to The Jackson Five and New Edition. Besides, the group members say, they want to be more than teen pinups. "We're the nicest gentlemen," says 18-year-old Omarion (real name Omari Grandberry), who like the rest of the guys in the group, is soft-spoken and known by a nickname. But the four young men still have a clean-cut demeanour and humble attitude that would please parents. A few staked out their Manhattan hotel recently, part of the reason B2K travels with hulking bodyguards. "They are a little edgier, they are a little sexier."ī2K's penchant for going shirtless during performances, their gyrating dance moves and their sensuous love ballads have made teen girls swoon. "They're not a really sanitized boy band," she says. (of) cheesy pop," says Cara Lynn Shultz, associate entertainment editor at Teen People magazine. It's pop without falling into that category. 1 single, "Bump, Bump, Bump," a rump-shaking dance song featuring P. Within nine months, they've released two albums that have gone gold had the best-selling R&B single of 2002 with "Uh Huh" and notched their first No. Yet the R&B quartet from Los Angeles has managed to buck the trend. When B2K debuted a year ago, the prospects for a new boy band weren't bright: There was a growing backlash against teen pop, and recent heartthrobs were fast becoming has-beens.
0 kommentar(er)
