Soultrain.com backstage interview with Bell Biv DeVoe (Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ron DeVoe) taped 10/27/01...

Watch the Interview: Real Video 56k | 250k

Soultrain.com: So this is your fourth album, self-titled.

Ron DeVoe: Right.

ST: And it's your first recording on Biv 10/Universal, correct?

All: Right.

ST: So tell us a little bit about that.

Ron: Well, again, this is our fourth record as Bell Biv DeVoe. One of the reasons why it took so long for this record to come out is the fact that we made a transition from MCA Records, which was a company we was on for a long time, and now we're on our boy's label, Mr. Biv 10 [motions to Michael Bivins], you know? And it took a while to kind of smooth out the business side of things, but we finally got that straight, and it took us probably a little under a year to actually record the record, and it comes out December 18th. It's goin' down! It's 11 joints on there. Incredible, hot -- we didn't miss a beat on this one.

ST: What's the vibe of the record?

Michael Bivins: It's real young, you know what I mean? It's BBD, Part II. To me, it's like an extension of the 'Poison' album, you know what I'm sayin'? It's got all of the records that remind you of the BBD classics, the 'Poisons' the 'Do Mes' the '[When Will I See You] Smile Agains.' It has hit records. You know, it's something for the younger generation, you know, to get with us. And there's something for the generation that came up with us to reminisce. And I think it's gonna be a hip-hop/R&B classic when it's all said and done. Between the records on the album and the remixes and the whole BBD run, I think all of that will show people that it was a good album and they like the way we unfolded the whole project, musically.

ST: OK. You're doing two songs from the new album on the show today. Can you tell us a little bit about each of those?

Ricky Bell: OK. We're doing one song -- it's called 'The Hot Sh*t,' which was produced by Rockwilder, and it's just a lifestyle kind of a song. It's really like a club-banger. You know, the beat is just grinding and the lyrics -- we just basically talkin' smack. You know, we have Shamari from the group Blaque that's on the record, another artist named Jack Frost and Shaheed, the Posterboy. And 'Breezy,' the second song, which is gonna be our second single, was produced by Heavy D and Tony Dofat. We met Heavy D in L.A. Ran into him at a studio in Los Angeles. And, you know, about a half an hour later he came with a track for us, and we loved it, and that's gonna be our second single.

ST: Did he actually write the music for that song?

Ricky: Yeah, him and Tony Dofat -- and the lyrics.

ST: Oh, OK.

Ricky: Yeah.

ST: And Jagged Edge worked with you --

Ricky: Jagged Edge -- the twins from Jagged Edge, Brandon and Brian, wrote [a song] -- which will be our third single -- called 'In My Crib.' And we also have Ralph -- you know, Ralph Tresvant from New Edition, of course, is singing on the song with us.

ST: Now what did they bring to this project?

Michael: They brought a lot of flavor. You know, Ralph brings the good voice that you miss, the baby Michael Jackson. You know, Brandon and Brian, you know, they just bring the today, you know, big fans of New Edition and how they would see us if they was to write a record for us. And, you know, Heavy and Tony and all them, they all just -- they brought themselves, but they tailor-made it into BBD, so, you know, that was a good thing. It doesn't feel like we're in someone else's style, we're in someone else's style who has a version of us or who has a way they see us, doin' it our way, our version.

ST: Now, are you guys going to be touring at all?

Michael: We gonna go out and do a House of Blues tour right after Thanksgiving, and we gonna try to jump on somebody else's tour, possibly co-headlining or going on before the headliners around February, and then maybe summer we plan to do our own tour, the BBD tour.

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Check out BBD's new self titled CD at CDNow.

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show #995

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