90s r&b ingenues - some cautionary tales

in today's r&b scene there are several artists that you feel like you've grown up with. and there is a good reason for that - you have.

the rise of teenage r&b singers in the early and mid 90s probably wouldn't unfold in quite the same way today. it wasn't entirely a new phenomenon - there have always been child stars but they usually made age appropriate music, or acted younger than their age. but representing real teenagers is a bit more difficult. we know they do the same things as adults, but it's illegal so we don't talk about it too much.


before the spice girls changed the rulebook, image and identity were just an added facet of celebrity rather than something you planned in great detail, either to complement talent or disguise a lack of it. it was possible to make music and be a bit vague about who you were and more importantly, how old you were.


the fact that these singers were the same age or even younger than they audience they were targeting, wasn't immediately apparent. their songs dealt with adult issues, they collaborated with adults and existed within adult spaces. in some cases, this did impact on their personal lives by accelerating their development. we'll never really know the truth about aaliyah and r.kelly's alleged underage marriage, unless it surfaces in the fallout from his court case.

ten 90s jailbait anthems - download here






brandy - baby
born 1979, debut 1994 at age 14
poor old brandy. until recently, one of the most successful of the 90s ingenues, having completed 4 successful albums, a tv show, movie and a panel spot on 'america's got talent'. after the birth of her first child, her marriage was exposed as fake and she is currently awaiting trial for manslaughter after a crash that killed another driver. we won't even go into her errant brother ray j, those tapes and the whitney thing...









tevin campbell - can we talk
born 1976, debut 1990 at age 13
tevin's first taste was as a guest performer on prince's 1990 album 'graffiti bridge'. a year later, his first album hit and he became an overnight star. he famously dated tatyana ali, both on and off-screen, after a cameo role playing himself in the fresh prince of bel air. there has been considerable speculation about his sexuality and he has been arrested for a george michael-style incident with an undercover cop.

aaliyah - the thing i like

born 1979, debut 1994 age 15
since her tragic death in 2001, aaliyah's popularity has spiralled. before, she was a popular yet often overlooked singer on the verge of superstardom as an actress. she blossomed as she broke away from r.kelly and hooked up with visionaries missy elliott and timbaland. aaliyah's smooth, caramel-like voice sounds even more soothing against many of the melismatic, shrill and shouty copycat acts she's inspired since.

usher - think of you

born 1978, debut 1993 age 14

in 1991, 13 year old usher's appearance on star search led to a contract with laface. precocious beyond his years thanks to an ill-advised internship at bad boy, usher was well known on the circuit by 1992 and in 1993 his first track appeared on the soundtrack to poetic justice. in 1994 he released his eponymous debut, but didn't hit paydirt until worldwide smash 'you make me wanna' in 1998.

monica - angel
born 1980, debut 1995 at age 14

in 1991, 11 year old monica started work on what would become her 1995 debut 'miss thang'. an astonishingly mature effort given that fact, it remains her best album to date and stood confidently alongside offerings from more mature artists. like many of her peers, monica has suffered significant personal trauma with the suicide of her boyfriend, and has been criticised recently for dressing her three year old son as a thug. these critics best not visit croydon. despite being only 26 now, she looks much older thanks to a dodgy bleach job.

smooth - mind blowin'

born "1979", debut 1990 age 11...
ok, something here doesn't quite add up. if her alleged birth year is correct, mc smooth debuted at age 11 in 1990. we'll suspend disbelief...in 1993 she recorded a sophomore effort, now as smooth, 'you been played', but it was her third album at age 16 in 1995, that broke her. now recording under an alias, 'needa s'. her real name is juanita stokes if anyone can be bothered to uncover the truth...

mona lisa - can't be wasting my time
born 1979, debut 1995 age 16
had no idea she was so young at the time. if she was - she named her debut album '11-20-79', her birthdate, so more likely than the aforementioned ms stokes. if that picture's anything to go by, mona tried a bit too hard to labour the point about her youth by wearing bunches. at the age of 16. her second album was shelved but a comeback is imminent and several tracks have leaked.








destiny's child - no no no
born 1981/2 - debut 1997 ages 15
so, despite ongoing allegations that beyonce was born as early as 1974, and not 1981 as drilled home during recent bday promotion, it doesn't seem as odd looking at the rest of this list. after several members and incarnations, which would later prove to be just the tip of the iceberg, their arrival in 1997 heralded the new era of jittery tracks overlaid with rhythmic rather than melodic vocals.





immature - feel the funk
born 1981, debut 1992 age 11
after a childish debut, immature, including future actor and r&b star marques houston, had to wait for their third album and er, puberty, before gaining success in 1995. several years later they realised that their name was perhaps not doing them any favours and they became IMx.







kris kross - i missed the bus
born 1978/79, debut 1992 ages 13/14
research has failed to uncover an earlier example of clothes being worn backwards. therefore, millions of fashion crimes can be traced back to a pair of early teens, both called chris, in 1992. just to clarify, an entire culture took style cues from a 13 and 14 year old. never in 2007. i have resisted the temptation to put 'jump' on here. it's usually played in clubs right after 'jump around' if you seriously can't remember it...

the woman behind the 'superwoman'

sometimes, you discover artists that no one else seems to know about. one day, in my german class at school, we had to name our favourite artist. it was 1990 so the most popular answers, and most acceptable if you wanted to escape the scorn of your peers, were 'soul ii soul' or 'de la soul'. and so it went, all around the room. it must have been riveting for the teacher, although he used to play a banjo, so its likely every response was alien to him.

several brave souls ventured 'new kids on the block' (shouldn't admit to that one) and 'madonna' (so passe by 1990) and a couple of geeks, keen to display 'underground' music knowledge, smugly named some obscure 60s bands and impressed no one. then someone said 'karyn white' and the room fell silent. i didn't have the inclination to let the rest of the class know that i also knew and liked karyn white, i just listened to the person's explanation with interest. 'you know, she did that song 'superwoman' but the rest of her stuff is nothing like that. oh, i don't know...she's kind of like janet jackson'. fair enough.

karyn, was a young vocalist in the powerhouse tradition who worked with la and babyface and also jam and lewis over the course of her career, and married terry lewis in 1992. she was a session singer discovered by jazz fusion artist jeff lorber in 1986. he asked her to sing lead on two tracks for his new project 'private passion' that was to feature soul vocalists singing over his jazz-funk compositions. 'facts of love' and 'true confessions' proved the perfect showcase for karyn's talent and paved the way for a solo deal.

my classmate was right. karyn's eponymous debut in 1988 in a way, did fill the gap between janet's 'control' and 'rhythm nation 1814' albums. most people remember it for enduring ballad, 'superwoman', a staple of easy listening radio playlists to this day. but the truth is that the album was far less pop and more classic r&b than that song would suggest, or that janet would have attempted herself.

the singles released from 'karyn white' were far more ubiquitous in the US, who were switched on to r&b far earlier than the UK where it remained a specialist genre, or subgenre of dance, until the late 90s. nevertheless, they did ok over here and I can remember her second album and lead single 'romantic' being greeted enthusiastically on tv-am. both a blessing and a curse.

'ritual of love' was handily split into a 'dance me' side and 'romance me' side, if you bought the cassette. which a lot of people still did in those days. this concept has been nicked by many other artists, especially for their greatest hits albums. with her third album 'make him do right', karyn continued to have moderate success but never really broke through.

over the years, sharing flats and cd collections, precious few people have ever heard of karyn white. but they all remember 'superwoman'. aaargh! don't get me wrong, i love the song but it was an obvious hit and a calculated move, not what she should be remembered for.

ten karyn white songs that I prefer to 'superwoman' - download here

facts of love
music by jeff lorber, vocals by karyn white. this track introduced the world to her talents, at the age of 20.

the way you love me
listen about halfway through - did karyn pioneer the speed-singing style destiny's child and wyclef claimed to invent on 'no no no'? beyonce....you never learn do you?

secret rendezvous
should have been much bigger than it was, this was late 80s syncopated r&b at its best. one for the bedroom and the dancefloor.

don't mess with me
out-sassing control-era janet was always going to be tricky, but karyn has the vocals and attitude to pull it off.

family man
karyn finds out her man has a wife and kids at home. she won't be the last...and this is the way to deal with it.

not thru being with you
in between her first two albums, karyn hooked up with michael jeffries for this uptempo club smash.

romantic
remix of one of her biggest hits, the first single from second album 'ritual of love'. less percussion, more bass.

the way i feel about you
remix of the other big hit from 'ritual of love'. should have been the start of bigger things.

how i want you
one of many great slow jams from 'ritual of love'. worthy of a place on any 90s 'do me baby' playlist.

one heart

sweet ballad that stays just the right side of saccharine. probably written with terry lewis in mind...shame it didn't work out.

boys don't cry - new edition go solo

if there was ever a gender stereotype that was true, its that girls can't get along. so when female band mates part ways, the media holds their breath for the name calling, backbiting and never has to wait for too long. a lot of women would rather eat nothing but salad for the rest of their lives than see a former female friend do their thing.

witness beyonce and kelly's unceremonious dumping of destiny's child cohorts letoya, latavia and farrah at the first sign they wouldn't toe the line. and now, not content with daddy hampering kelly and michelle's solo ambitions since the dc3 finale, beyonce is now rumoured to be sabotaging newly famous solo star letoya's efforts. recently she allegedly demanded letoya be removed from a soundtrack project before she would participate and made herself look like a petulant child when she flew into london for last year's mobo awards only to boycott it when the organisers refused to strike letoya from the lineup.

boy bands just never seem to have all these problems. seemingly, they're happy just to be there having a laugh with their friends. and if one leaves, they wish them well and even make guest appearances on their new solo material. which may well be the clue to why every member of new edition found solo fame - karma.

ten reasons i can't decide if i prefer new edition together, or apart - download here

bobby brown - every little step, don't be cruel, roni, rock witcha
bobby wasn't always the village idiot. before reality tv uncovered the madness that led him to yell at plastic fruit, bobby was the most successful of all the former new edition boys. although the erratic behaviour that led to his eviction from the group would resurface in later years, he pretty much held it together from 1988 to 1994. in 1988, at the age of 19 he hit pay dirt with 'my perogative' and never looked back.

bell biv devoe - poison, do me, in the crib
hot on the heels of new edition's 'heart break' tour, ronnie devoe, michael bivins and ricky bell formed bell biv devoe and has instant success with new jack swing classics 'poison' and 'do me'. in 2002 they returned with a new album, and 'in my crib'. all are still active as part of new edition and ronnie devoe is married to shamari fears of blaque, who is probably not old enough to remember the boys in their early days...

johnny gill - rub you the right way, there you go
unlike the others, johnny had been successful prior to joining the group, with three albums already under his belt. after, he had one of the biggest hits of the new jack era, 'rub you the right way' and went on to record five more albums and joined forces with gerald levert and keith sweat to form lsg in the late 90s. 'there you go' was one of the highlights of the popular 1992 soundtrack to the eddie murphy film 'boomerang'.

ralph tresvant - sensitivity
wacko soundalike ralph was slightly more cautious about striking out on his own. 'sensitivity' is his biggest hit although his collab with bobby brown on 'stone cold gentleman' comes close. like johnny, he is still part of new edition but has had consistent solo success and is still recording today.