Bobby Brown

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Bobby Brown was born in 1969 in Boston and grew up in the Orchard Park Projects in Roxbury, one of eight children. At three he saw his idol James Brown perform, and that awakened his dream of becoming a singer. He sang in a church choir. In 1980, at the age of twelve, he founded the group New Edition together with Michael Bivins and Ricky Bell, at first under the name The Bricks. With hits such as Candy Girl and Cool It Now it grew into a well-known R&B and pop group. In 1985 he left the group for a solo career.

Music and breakthrough

His debut album King of Stage from 1986 contained the R&B number 1 Girlfriend. With Don't Be Cruel in 1988 he broke through: five singles reached the top ten of the American Hot 100, including the number 1 My Prerogative and the award-winning Every Little Step. In 1989 he contributed two songs to the soundtrack of Ghostbusters II. The album Bobby followed in 1992, with Humpin' Around. That same year he married Whitney Houston; their marriage received a great deal of media attention and ended in divorce in 2007.

Influence

Brown is regarded, together with his regular partner Teddy Riley, as a pioneer of new jack swing, a mixture of hip hop and R&B. That means hard, tight drum machine rhythms beneath soulful singing with rap running through it. My Prerogative shows how that style sounded in 1988: tough, danceable and direct.

Listening

• 
  My Prerogative · Bobby Brown, 1988
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1986King of Stage
• 1988Don’t Be Cruel
• 1992Bobby
• 1997Forever
• 2012Masterpiece

Mentioned in other articles

• New jack swing GenreThe drum machine swings, with a short, hard snare, while singers such as Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat sing soulfully over it.

See also

• Don’t Be Cruel