Category: Live music blog flashback- Bell Biv Devoe. Back in the early 90’s, Bell Biv Devoe or BBD as they were known were blowing up the world of hip hop/r&b. I saw a show recently on VH1 and I think they mentioned them and where they are and what they are doing. They came to mind when I received a BBD jacket from a friend today who was involved with them when they did the world tour in 91′. Kind of a crazy looking jacket with about ten different segments that were made up of all different colors.
BBD hit it big with “Poison” and the classic “Do Me”, and their album Poison sold over 3 million copies. The group was a spinoff of the mega selling group New Edition and consisted of Ronnie Devoe, Michael Bivins, and Ricky Bell. The group followed up with the album WBBD-Bootcity that was certified gold, but never reached the level of the Poison album. BBD put out a few more albums and reunited with New Edition in 1996, but have basically disappeared from the landscape of the R&B picture.
Ronnie is now a real estate agent in Atlanta and still part of New Edition. Michael Bivins got into producing and had some modest successes and now works for Puff Daddy at Bad Boy Entertainment. Ricky, I couldn’t find much on but he is working on independent projects and in fact released a very good album in 2000, that reviewed well, but didn’t sell well.
Apparently BBD was back touring in 2008. I would check it out if they came to my city to relieve that magic time and music.
Tags: 
