BBD Talks New Album And Collaborating With SWV & Boyz II Men
New Edition buzz is everywhere right now, and N.E. members Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe, better known as BBD, are releasing an album this week following the premiere of The New Edition Story mini-series on BET. The album Three Stripes will drop at midnight on January 27th.
BBD was formed in 1990, as New Edition went on hiatus, with Bell, Bivins and DeVoe opting to become their own trio. The group hasn't released an album in 15 years, but the wait is finally over. While talking to Lenny Green on WBLS the guys said they believe they were at the top of their game while recording this album and fans can listen to the previews of their project now.
"They released the snippets, so you can go and listen to those ten joints," DeVoe said. "Bell Biv DeVoe, this some of our best work in years."
"We been working our butt off too, man," Bivins added. "We've been traveling and promoting but we stand on this album. Not because we made it, because like Ron said, we actually feel like we've gotten better as artists."
The 10 track album includes features from Doug E Fresh and Boyz II Men. But one of their favorite songs is "Finally" featuring fellow 90s R&B vets, hitmaking female trio SWV.
"I knew ['Finally'] was something special when I was driving my mom from Boston to Connecticut for the holiday. And I played it for her and my wife, and tried to let them hear the rest of the album. But both of those ladies kept saying 'can you please go back to Finally,'" Biv explained.
But in the process of making the record, Bell was unsure about how his performance would be alongside Cheryl "Coko" Gamble.
"Honestly right before we did the song, I was intimidated," Bell stated. "You know a duet with Coco, she's amazing. I even called my manager like 'I don't know man. I don't know if this is going to work'. I was just real hesitant. But once I finally went in and Coko laid her part and I went in and did my vocals I was like okay cool."
And with The New Edition Story airing this week, the guys touched on how genuine the biopic really is.
"It's authentic, it's real," Bell said. "We sat down with the writer and we all told him our personal stories. And we sat down as a group, we recorded ourselves for probably like 12 hours a day, and we just sat and reminisced over different stories and gave that to the writer. We kept feeding him information and Abdul did a great job putting together a great story for us."
Tune into BET tonight through Thursday at 9pm EST for The New Edition Story, and BBD's new album is available for preorder now, on Apple Music and Amazon Music.