Last week, an unusual thing happened: A vocal group named Bluff City cracked the Top 30 on the Adult R&B chart with their song “Let Me Show You.” Rakeem, Trevante, Roney, and Frank are young, unsigned and rash enough to form a group in a decidedly hostile climate for ensembles. “I always knew I wanted to be in a group—that was all the music I listened to,” Rakeem says. “A lot of people have been missing that, especially in our generation. They didn’t get to have the Jodeci’s or 112’s.”
R&B groups were once a sacred institution in the genre’s mainstream—from The Temptations to Jodeci, The Supremes to Destiny’s Child—but then they all but vanished. Pretend you’re at a bar trivia night. It’s the music round, so you’re feeling confident. The question is, when’s the last time a new R&B group had a top 20 hit on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart?
Maybe you’d remember Mindless Behavior’s “Mrs. Right,” which peaked at No. 8 in 2011, but maybe not, since that group never cracked the Top 20 again. You have to go further back to locate a group that managed to score two hits: Cherish, which reached the Top 20 in 2006 (“Do It To It”) and 2007 (“Unappreciated”). And you have to go even further to find a group that managed three hits—i.e., the beginning of a sustainable commercial career in the pre-streaming era—B2K in 2002 and 2003. None of those groups are still together.
As those dates indicate, the extinction moment for groups took place in the early 2000s, when R&B ensembles were suddenly crushed on two sides. They were primary victims when the record industry started hemorrhaging money thanks to its refusal to engage with the new digital economy.
“Labels weren’t making the kind of money hand over fist anymore, and it totally changed the entire construct of what they were doing,” says Keith Mitchell of the group After 7. “The kind of money they could afford to spend was totally different when piracy and downloads came, and they were late to the game. It didn’t appear to be as lucrative to develop, house and transport three, four, five members of a group as opposed to having one individual who could, from all indicators, carry an image and a sound all on his or her own.”
The other threat to R&B groups came from rappers, who were becoming increasingly dominant and pushing singers off radio. Just 11 Top 20 airwave hits were by a rapper or featured an MC in 1995; by 2002, that number was up to 45. This represented an existential threat to all of R&B, but R&B groups were particularly susceptible. The majority of commercially successful rappers are soloists—eight of the ten best-selling hip-hop albums are by individual artists, and one is by the duo OutKast—so the solo model became the one to beat. “The business got significantly directed more towards solo acts,” acknowledges Mitchell.
In pop, groups managed to survive, but only as long as they were backed by major institutions who were able to invest millions in the ensembles' livelihoods. “Fundamentally behind some closed doors it was said, ‘We’re not really signing groups unless they’re in packages from an institution like Simon Cowell [One Direction, Fifth Harmony, new group PrettyMuch] or K-Pop [BTS became the first such group to crack the Hot 100 last year],’” Tricky Stewart told Rolling Stone in 2017.
In R&B, groups were mostly dead on arrival: During the 2000s, Koffee Brown, Profyle, RichGirl, Dame Four, Electrik Red, Isyss, 3LW, B5, Brutha, Day26, Dear Jayne, Taurus—and don’t forget Mindless Behavior and Cherish—all came and went, barely leaving a trace. “There is no Ralph, Bobby, Ronnie, Ricky and Mike anymore,” says the R&B/pop songwriter Claude Kelley (Brandy, Toni Braxton, Bruno Mars), ticking off the names of the five original members of the group New Edition. “There is no five different personalities, five different styles, five different accents.”
There is still New Edition, though. Legacy groups can be found on Adult R&B radio stations, and “This One’s for Me and You”—a single credited to Johnny Gill and New Edition—was a Number One hit in that format in 2016. Jodeci’s “Every Moment” also reached No. 1 in that space; After 7 have enjoyed a series of successful singles, and right now 112 and En Vogue are also climbing the chart. But this space focuses on older listeners, so younger groups, to the extent they exist, have not had much success there.
However, nostalgia for the ‘90s, and groups in particular, has reached new heights in recent years. Tory Lanez breakout hit “Say It” relied heavily on a sample for Brownstone’s “If You Love Me.” Sleepy Tom and Diplo have earned 188 million streams to date on “Be Right There,” which lifts liberally from Jade. TLC are credited as songwriters on Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” the most popular song of 2017. Sometimes the recent wave of ‘90s-group homage was less literal: Last year, Cash Money singer Jacquees seemed to be reaching back to the group era when he recruited Ty Dolla $ign and Quavo for a sing-off remix to his hit single “B.E.D.”
Combine the cyclical nature of trends with the fact that the music business is actually making money again—thanks to streaming, revenue has grown several years in a row after a decade of decline—and perhaps conditions are in place for the right group to come along and break through. BET seemed to think the time was right in 2016, when they teamed with Kelly Rowland and group guru Frank Gatson, Jr. (En Vogue, Destiny’s Child, TLC) on the show Chasing Destiny, which aimed to find the next big girl group. The network changed its mind and cancelled the show after one season, to Gatson’s chagrin, but he’s still working with the group, June’s Diary, which he touts as “the most incredible group I’ve ever worked with in my life.” They toured last year as the opening act for Xscape, another 1990s group that recently re-formed. “[June’s Diary] just need the right record and the right opportunity,” Gatson says. “I’ve known groups all my life. I truly believe in groups.”
Bluff City is the first young group to chart in recent memory. Rising single “Let Me Show You,” finds the sound to match their throwback ambitions: The guitar-and-harmony heavy track is straight from the ‘90s R&B playbook. It was written in part by Troy Taylor, the man behind hits like Trey Songz’s “Neighbors Know My Name” and more recently, Kevin Ross’ “Long Song Away;” in fact, “Let Me Show You” was originally intended for Songz. “He was like, ‘ya’ll like that one? That’s an old record!’” Rakeem recalls. “Nah,” he remembers replying. “That’s what we want to bring back.”
But not everybody believes that looking to the past is the best way to revive the group. Creek Boyz, who offer a thoroughly modern take on the ensemble: They call themselves a trap choir. “We wanted to create our own genre, have our own lane, our own wave of music,” Fedi Mula says. They’ve been bubbling slowly, amassing 2.3 million plays on “With My Team,” a remix from Lil Yachty, and earning a deal with 300, the label that aided the careers of Young Thug, Fetty Wap, and Tee Grizzley. This ensemble is prepared for a world dominated by singing-rappers, off-kilter melodies and wood-chipper hip-hop beats; Creek Boyz’s songs are full of spirited chants and helium-huff warbles. Perhaps if the group concept is to make a comeback, it needs to leave the old models behind and invent some new ones, and Creek Boyz appear willing to try.
Still, resistance to groups remains strong. Gatson is used to the protests. “All the hateration I get for having a group right now —'why you doing it? People don’t like groups no more!‘” he says. “I always respond, executives are lazy and trifling. No one’s really put together an incredible group.”
