Permalink
Dope article! Here are some highlights:
BallerStatus.com: Being in both groups who put a mark on the industry, which group do you hold closer to your heart?
Mike Biv: The one that got me out the projects, New Edition. New Edition took me off my game plan from basketball. It was so explosive and so crazy for young black youth in the 80s, because they had some young black kids to look at. What New Edition has done for ourselves and our families is change our lives. We are not just a group with records out. We are a generation group. This generation right now is not going to be able to have a group to cherish as long as our generation has cherished us. Who was on that path Advo? It was B2K. They started off going with a generation, but they ran into the same problem all the groups ran into. Some inner turmoil they didn’t know how to handle. A little bit of money and success destroyed a great project. It’s going to take the right type of act to be special to have that staying power, so you can see them when you are 14 and go and see them when you are 30 or 40 and everybody is still rocking. It just don’t happen like that no more.
BallerStatus.com: What does it feel like to be apart of such a timeless classic like “Can You Stand The Rain?”
Mike Biv: To be honest with you, we were messing with the right producers. Anytime you can get a Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis back in the 80s after that “Control”, it makes it timeless. The writing is timeless and that’s what people don’t realize is that the people that were penning the songs back then, those were prolific songwriters man. They’re not listening to a beat, figuring out how to get some ass and you know, dropping panties. That’s not where people were coming from man, they were making love in the more respectful way years ago. Nowadays it’s a little more greasier. Rightfully so, things change, but the record is timeless because of the lyrics. It’s a slick way of getting that ass. It’s almost like the champagne and wine, as opposed to pulling out the dollar bill and making it rain.
On Boyz II Men…
BallerStatus.com: They were selling out stadiums.
Mike Biv: First of all, we woke up Elvis’s record from 1958. Nobody was focusing on no record charts and records being #1 for 12 and 14 weeks. That was some bullsh**. Nobody was thinking about that because no one thought they could do it. We beat Elvis by 13 weeks and of course, Clive Davis did with Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. Then after that, it was free for all. But we cracked that history man. Those guys voices man … you know why they work? Because they put real singing back in sh**. Anytime you can turn the music off and you don’t have the vocals running on the dat machine or the computer and you can just keep it funky. It’s almost like Big or Jay or Rakim in the booth with no piece of paper. It don’t get no realer then that man. Those records are organically made man.
Hey there: I'm Joe Johnson, and the best word to describe me & my blog: Random. 
