Ralph Tresvant

Hey, what's up, y'all? It's me, Sean. What you about to check out? It's probably one of the best conversations I've ever had. Now you're going to see part one right here, but if you want to check out part two, you got to join the Patreon community on that note. Make sure you do that and you'll be able to see part two. In the meantime, enjoy part one. What's up, y'all? I'm Rob Tresvend. You're watching On That Note with my man Sean Stockman. Welcome, welcome, welcome, everybody to another episode of On That Note. Of course, this is the place where we speak a language we all understand and that is music. But before I introduce my highly esteemed guests, make sure you guys grab on to the Patreon community. Make sure you join all kinds of exclusive footage and all kinds of good stuff that you can only get on that note Patreon community. All right? So, this was hard, man. You know why? Because you got to understand, and my wife, she clowns me all the time. Y'all my heroes, man. So it was hard for me to kind of encapsulate everything that I wanted to say. So I tried to keep it as short, but representative as possible. So all right, here I go. My guest, ladies and gentlemen, is an icon. Let that sink in. Because he is, right? He's one of the most important vocal identities in modern R&B. Wow. Smooth, emotional, controlled. He helped to find the sound and influence everybody, everybody, from boys to men, to today's melodic R&B artists. He is the voice of an incomparable assemblage of the greatest group of all time. His voice is recognizable from the first lyric. His prowess on stage is matched only with the greats. Ruffin, Wilson, Jackson, Take a Pick. He's inspired many and has solidified his status not just as the frontman of his own band but also on his own. One of the coolest, most humble superstars I have been blessed to share a stage with and actually call a brother. A wonderful father and an all-around good spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Ralph Edward Tresman, aka Ralph Tresman. What's up, man? I thought you was talking about me, bro. What? That's not you. What's that mean? I love it. Thanks, shiz. I appreciate that, man. What's good, man? I'm good, man. You know, I'm having a ball out here on the road, you know. How's touring going? Like, tell me, how's the touring life going, bro? Touring is going. You know how it's going. I'm just saying, you know how you're killing it with me, man. This is going like it's going. We're killing these buildings. We're selling them. Are we breaking records? Yeah. I always felt like if we got together and did something, it would do something we've never seen done before. We always felt that. You know what I mean? Boyce and Mendoza never collabed on something, record or touring something that it would be something milestone. And sure enough, that's what this tour feels like. It's one of the top-grossing tours in the country right now. Like straight up, this is not even a flex. This is real fact. And the new additions way tour, starring these guys, these guys and that queen, we're putting smiles on people's faces, really. And we knew that this was going to be something special from the conception because we understand our fans. We understand the people that support us. And they've been wanting this too. So I'm just finally, just like you said, it finally happened. I'm happy it did. And I think the people are happy too. So I just want to congratulate you on your success. And Riz is classy because he also comes bearing gifts. As you can see, he gifted me this amazing copper ink with the crystal quartz in the middle. If anybody know anything about this, this is pure spiritual energy right here. This is healing from the inside out. And this is an amazing gift, Riz. And I appreciate you. Riz, I know you know about it. When we were talking at the rehearsals, I said, I've told you then, I said, I got something. I got a bunch of, I got one like that that's tall as you, man. Wow. That I walk around the property with nine then. Yeah. Just get the energy, man. I mean, barefooted. I mean, I'm trying to do it like they did back in the day. So I knew you. So when you said that, and I saw what you were wearing, you already had it on. I was like, Oh Shawn, I can appreciate this. Oh, for sure. I've had that on the tour bus. It's time to stop. My little protection thing. So I said, let me bring this to my bro. Why I appreciate this. I really, really appreciate this energy into that, man. Yeah, baby. We got another one. We got to drive Lifey. We drive Lifey crazy. So I'm about to drive Lifey crazy with you. Yeah, exactly. You already said you got no more room for myself. Right. room for this one. You know what I'm saying? That's what's up. No, but thank you, brother. You got it. So, uh, how's life, man? Life overall is good for me, man. You know, it's coming to a, it's crescendo for me. You know, I was like, all the, um, all of the things that you felt like maybe was going to pass you by, you know, some of the accolades I would say for doing it as long as we've been doing it. You know, everybody, all the fans. I come to heaven on the walk of fame and I come there not on the this. I come to have a residency and kind of all that stuff just piled in a few years almost like, you know what I mean? Yeah. And just put a smile on everybody that I know his face from my family, my sister, everybody's super proud. Yeah. My brother's super, you know, all my aunts, they're just wearing that, that, that, that, that thing on their chest now. So that's what I'm talking about. Y'all find, they finally recognize and y'all for this and that. And I had come to the point where it didn't matter anymore. I was, I was able to feed my family. Yeah. We, we, we weren't in the projects no more per se, you know, I mean, we got a lot of friends and family there. So I'm still down there, but at the same time, we were blessed to move on and have a better life from what we've been doing all our years. And that became the most important thing after a while. So if I didn't get all of these other things, I was still going to be cool. Exactly. With my, with my run, right? But just watching all of that coming ahead is put a different type of smile on my face, man. I just feel, I feel like all of it was worth it, you know, and other, other people are being able to like fans, they share it all of our accolades with us. You know, I've noticed they feel like they won the award when we won an award. They got nothing to do with us. They did. So seeing them fulfilled and, and, and being able to wear. So I told you, my group was one of the best and all this stuff, being able to have that, that, that badge of honor for themselves. I feel really proud to have stuck with it and kept it going all these years. I just feel good right now. Well, I like to start my shows off by going way back in the beginning, because as much as I know things about you, I don't know certain things that are very important. So we're going to go back. I like to do a segment called, we're going to go back way back back in the time. So when you were about a, about a 10 year old, 10, 11, you know, always use that age because that's those formable years, formative years where you're not a kid anymore. You're growing out of being a kid and you're actually listening to music differently now. So 10, Roxbury, Massachusetts, Orchard Park. What was being played that influenced you to want to pursue a career in music? Like who were the, who were your heroes? Oh, everybody, man. I just was a fan of the radio. That's why I became a DJ after a while. Yeah. You were a DJ DJ. Yeah. Yeah. I actually cut, scratch, blend, mix, and you know, I do all of it. Yeah. Thanks to my, my mentor, Brian Cropo, Rest in Heaven, man. They, they took him, he would be here with me today. Yeah. I can guarantee that if he was still alive. But the Cropo family, Brian introduced me to turntables and stuff like that. My family had already introduced me to music. The Motown Sound, obviously. Anything that was top 10 and being played on black radio, I was influenced by, man, Roger Trotman was a huge, I was a huge fan of Roger. And he introduced me to the talk box and all that kind of stuff. I was, you know, Paulie and Funkadelic, Funk, the Funk era, Bootsie Collins, Sliding the Family Stone. There were so many things. Marvin Gaye was way up there. Yeah. Absolutely. I think that that influence came out when I started doing my solo stuff. Right. Because I never thought that I would be doing songs like Sensitivity, man. Right. Just wasn't my, I was into the funk and I was the type of album Bobby put out. Right. Right. Hit the block with, you know, being that dude. Right. Right. And somehow I got up and I went up to Flytime and that dude came up, the Stone Cold Gentleman, the Sensitivity guy, whatever. You know, they write based on what they see in you. That's right. You spend time with them for a few weeks before you even sing a note or they even, I don't know if they're writing, but before you sing a note, you just spend, they just observing you. Yeah. And that's what came back. Yeah. They started playing me right. Cause I was like, what? I thought, I'm not the everybody's talking. Right. Right. We're not going to get that. Wow. It's like, man, this is. So you wanted to go completely left to what was already, what was created. I had an album called Living in a Dream. Prior to working with them, that I was just trying to put together. It was just music at the time, but I was starting to form it into an album because it was, it was just real representative of what I thought I was coming out to projects and the friends I had, you know, the type of lifestyle I had, it was representative of that. Yeah. But, you know, God had another plan, man. When I got up there, they saw a whole another energy and I heard the song and it was just undeniably beautiful. Yeah. It's a record when I heard the chords and the progress, I heard sensitive outside. Yeah. What am I about to do? I think it worked out for you. It did, man. I think it did. I think it did okay. Overall. Yeah. Yeah. Multi platinum records later and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It did all right. You got one of those things with this record in it. I got it. I got those. That's platinum color. I got that. It was a beautiful thing. Thank you, Jimmy and Terry. So that answers my question because that was one of my questions because I was told that sensitivity almost wasn't made like the song. Yeah. I don't know if it was not almost made, but it was just one of those things that I would have never guessed. I wasn't planning that. That's kind of what, when I heard it, I was making it. I never had it and heard it and said, no, I don't want to do that. Oh, okay. Okay. Never did that. When I heard that song, it just was a contradiction to the type of style or album that I've been working on the music I've been working on by myself with my nephews and my niece and nephew's dad, Duane Omar at the time. I was working with him. Yeah. And we just put music together. I was enjoying his writing, his music style. He was enjoying my writing style. It was combining that single and it was just, we was coming up with some real heat for that era. It was the swing before the swing was the Teddy before the Teddy. And on the next day, it was in that room. But, when I got with Jimmy and Terry and them, it just turned into a whole other energy. And I kind of just grew up being in Minneapolis until a side of me that I didn't really realize that I was, or that I had. I knew I'm sensitive, but I'm not that sensitive. Didn't feel like we were supposed to be making music about it. It was oozing out of me when I'm talking to people and stuff. I didn't feel that. I was like, how are they picking that up? But that's what makes them who they are. The crazy part about Jimmy and Terry Lewis producers, like, Extraordinaires, one of the greatest to ever do it. And what a lot of people don't know about them is that before you record a note, people, me and my guys went to Minneapolis to record it. Before we would sing anything, we would sit for four hours and just talk. Not knowing that what they're doing is they're formulating the song as they're talking. So, as Brian Michael Cox says, the song is in a conversation. A lot of times, you're sitting and you're talking and out of the blue, you'll see Jimmy. That's it. And then you'll see Terry. And then there it is. But that's their formula. And it makes sense because songs have to come from a real place. A lot of times, we try to contrive these images or contrive these scenarios that really don't relate to us. Opposed to you're talking, all of a sudden some chords come out. And then the very sentence that you said becomes the lyrics. And you just add a melody to it. And then that's it. You know what I'm saying? That's how they move. We did everything but music for a while. We played basketball. We went to Timber Wolf Games. We ate barbecue at Certain Spice. And we played on his lake and they bolted. And we just did all kinds of stuff to just feel who you are. And then you hear it come back. And you can tell it's you. When they start playing it, you can tell that it really is you. They didn't make up something. But as a side of you, you would have never probably addressed. I just think for me, they bring out the better side of you. You might want to approach, like I said, the thug or the project kid. And they're like, okay, that's out there. How do we do something greater than that? And that's when you keep songs like, do what I gotta do. Stone Cold Gentlemen and stuff like that. It's like a combination of how to make that. You can still represent that there, but you gotta represent them better. And to be honest, it's how we've always viewed you. Like you being the front man for New Edition, you represented that gentleman, that person that was smooth and just your whole swag exuded that. And I think even though, and this is just the funny thing about a lot of us, like a lot of singers, like a lot of people don't realize, yeah, we might have that type of stature, like as far as our sensibilities and everything, but at the end of the day, we hood dudes. We come from certain areas where we're influenced by other things too. So that's also a side. Like I always talk about how I grew up around dudes like yourself. Like I had big bros that I used to admire because there was nothing soft about them. Nothing. But when it came to the ladies, they got soft. They knew how to dress. They understood how to talk to the lady, change right up. They could be talking shit with us. And a cutie would walk by, hey, miss, miss, miss. They do the whole, the hand grab, the famous hand grab thing where they grab the hand gentle, gentle. That's true. You don't yank a woman's arm, you niggas out here. But you gently grab her, you pull her to you, you whisper something. I used to watch this as a kid, me and my other young boys, we'd look and they would say something and they would make her laugh. And then her walk would change and the whole nine yards and we'd sit there like, damn, that's how it's done. That's the same thing. Brian, what I was just mentioning earlier, Brian today is the reason why I had a shag. I had waves. I started walking around brushing my hair and passing. He had his little V open with the chain on. He just was cool, real quiet. I believe a lot of me, a lot of Brian, is what I became. Watching him, just like you said, doing what he's doing, he was the lady's love, Brian. And I was like, well, I want to love me. And he was like, man, let me show you how you do your hair. I'll show you how you do your this. And he said, he's loosening up your shirt. We're buttoning up every now and then. And he don't got to always put on. So I was starting to put on my cologne, my dad's stuff. I was sneaking in his kaha karate. What a haka. Throwing that joint now and going outside, smelling like too much of it. Too much. Yeah. We never knew how much to put on. But we knew he was going to smell like this because this is a part of it. All those little things like that, man. You start realizing how you danced, how you moved. All carried and played into that. So yeah. This episode is sponsored by better help. May is mental health awareness month. And it's a good reminder to check in with yourself. Not just when things have fallen apart, but when life starts to feel heavier than usual. Sometimes you're carrying stress, pressure, decisions, family stuff, work stuff. You don't even realize how much space is taken up in your mind until it starts keeping you up at night. And the truth is nobody has all the answers by themselves. Sometimes just having someone to talk to, someone who can listen, understand, and help you sort through what you're feeling can make a real difference. Better help connects you with a fully licensed therapist and they do the initial matching work for you based on your needs and preferences. That match isn't right. You can switch to a different therapist at any time. Better help has over 30,000 therapists and has served over 6 million people globally with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for live sessions based on over 1.7 million client reviews. You don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash on that note. That's better H-E-L-P.com slash on that note. I'm going to tell you because me and my guys, again, watching more so when you guys did the heartbreak record and where videos at that time was even more prevalent and you got to see them more and BT was around and all the other stuff. So we got a chance to, when you had the VHS recording, you would tape your favorite music and your favorite shows and all that stuff. Me and my guys would sit over Mike McCary's house. We would just watch our videos over and over. I'll admit to this. When we first started performing for real, I would try to take some of your moves. There are certain things that I would do that I was like, yo, Ralph would do that. That's what's up. You know what I'm saying? That type of thing. And what's crazy is, I'm going to tell you a little insight about because I'm a student. I'm going to forever be a student. But the great thing, the reason why I call him one of the top tier performers is because Ralph has a way about how he performs where, yes, he's the lead and his heavy lifting is the vocals, but every once in a while in the midst of the vocals, he'll go into the step with the guys, not even break a note. And then come out, do his thing, fall back in, perfect. Don't miss not one fucking step. And then do a spin. And what I noticed about you and what I try to do is you never stop moving. You never stop moving, especially during the heartbreak era where you would do something, but you're constantly moving your feet. You're constantly moving your hips. You're constantly moving your body to the point where, oh yeah, for sure. Jay though. That's all the grace in front of us pretty much. When they're on stage, they're always entertaining. You never really see them still. They always have something going, something that makes you feel the rhythm, the beat. Keep the pulse of the song going, whatever that is. I'm always doing that too. I got that from them. But what I noticed too is that it helps with the breathing. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Because if you're constantly moving your body is warm. So you're not pausing. So you're constantly keeping your vocal cords warm and you're singing and you're not losing yourself within the actual show. And what's crazy is that Brooke Payne, choreography mentor, he used to pull that out. He makes sure I learned the whole routine. So when we went to rehearsals, I learned the whole routine. I just didn't learn my part that I had to be the hook or whatever it was. You learned all of it. I learned the verses. Everything everybody had to do, I learned as well. So it's playing in the back of my head while I'm performing. So at any point in time, I'm doing the choreography in my head while I'm doing the lead. So that's why I can stop at any point and jump into a part that they're doing. I know that's where they are in the song. I don't have to look back to make sure. Because repetitively doing it over and over again and learning the whole routine from the beginning to the end. And that's what sticks in my head. As I'm doing the thing up front, I'm doing the choreography in my head as well. That's the smooth shit. There's this video that's online. You guys can watch it on YouTube, 1988 and Philly, the heartbreak tour. And Count me out is playing. And he goes, like he's singing it and hitting the steps at the same time and not breaking. And then he'll come out of it. I'm like, yo, this dude is cold. That's crazy. You know what I'm saying? But again, I used to watch you, Ronnie as well. But then the other acts, the David Ruffins, one of my favorite is when David do a spin, throw the mic in the air, grab it, drop to his knees. Those things are impressionable. I see you right now, I flip the mic every now and then. Grab it in other hands. I'm like, oh, good shit. That's where you grabbed everything. Right. I do. It's like, I'll see these guys do it. And you don't know how many times I dropped that mug before. But yeah, but you know, I would just practice. Yeah. So yeah, but this is the dialogue that I've always wanted because from one entertainer to another, you know what I'm saying? These are the jewels that I think personally a lot of entertainers today are not really taking advantage of. We live in a day and age of information and there's all types of things that you can just look up that you can kind of glean from and get toodal from in a whole nine yards. You see some of these young boys on stage and they just walking around, grabbing themselves and not giving no performance, not saying thank you, not bowing, not, you know, all those things obviously taught to us by the guru, you know, for pain. But those things matter. Yeah. And a lot of these kids out here don't really understand the importance of. And they're not going to be around for 45, 50, you know, they're not going to be around as long as we been able to stay in the game. Yeah. Because people appreciate that. Yeah. They really do. They can see the sincerity and you wanting to give them the best performance. They want to get, you know, that you appreciate them coming and watching you perform, paying their money for your credits. And they see the genuine or not. They can tell if you're not genuine about it. Yeah. That's true. And that's why they're on to the next thing. That's true. So those are the little things that you don't realize that bow that thank you. Those things you just mentioned. Yeah. That makes a person want to. Okay, I want to keep supporting that. Yeah. Real talk. It's just how it is, man. That's how you get longevity. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, okay. The proximity between your guys. Again, as we mentioned, I know y'all grew up in Orchard Park projects in Boston. Who lived where? Give me the map. Like, who was, who was this place, that place, and how close or how far were you guys? I'll start from my side of Orchard Park, where I lived. Ricky was, there was a street that separated Ricky and I. The Hiss building was here. I was here in 28, Adam Street when we started. Ricky was right across on the first floor. I can't remember what that building number was, but it was all Adam Street. And then we had the park behind Ricky's building. I think that was Yeoman or Hamden. Yeoman was up here. I can't remember now. I'm going to get Eustace and something was at the end of Adams. As you go down Eustace, you get to, there's a park between behind Ricky's building. And that's where the field was, the plate, the baseball park, the basketball area. We had, there used to be an area that had a water spot and spot out in there when we were little that eventually ended up being a muck place with broken carriages and glass and sticks that we used to use as a, almost like a obstacle course, if you can get through without falling in the muck. That's right. That's right. That's right. Right. Then you got to the midway where the school was, the deer barn was, and the deer barn is where, that was my first school. Okay. Then you had Bobby's house. Bobby was kind of in the middle. Okay. And then there's a street there. That's one of the streets that, no, that's not the street that just got renamed, but it's connected to the new addition, Way Street. I just got kind of renamed. Okay. You cross that street, which I think is now it's Albany. You cross that street and you get to the last part of the projects before you get out with the train tracks and you leave the projects. That's where Michael was. Okay. So Bev lived on that side. I was on the far end. Bricky was right beside, across from me, then you had Bobby kind of in the middle and then Mike at the end. Where's Ron? Ron wasn't in the projects at the time. When I grew up, Ron, we found out Ron lived there for a while when he was younger, but he had moved out. His mom and him had moved out to Bricks before we started a new addition. Got it. So Brooke was coming back down to Orchard Park and to Bricks and doing concerts. He was doing shows with his groups right at this place called the High Hat that was in like where our bus station was, Dudley Station. And it was a place called the High Hat and he had the Untouchables and another group is going to slip my mind right now as I'm trying to think of it. And he had his group called A Touch of Blue based on Blue Magic. So those groups used to rehearse and perform at this place called the High Hat. Okay. And that's why Brooke was always down there and Mike, or Ricky and Bobby were introduced to his work. Got it. Through those acts that they admired because they would come up there in limos and dressed like they were already stars and they would be like, wow. How do we get like that? Right. We got to get with him. I see. So that's how they saw Brooke. And so when I joined the audition a couple years later, they had a version of it that never did any work, they never did any shows or anything with Travis Pettis and Corey Anderson. And those guys went on the way to doing basketball and other stuff like that. Right. So Bobby wanted to start it back out. That's what I got in. They went back to Brooke. Got it. So Ronnie was then introduced after we got the interest of Marry Star. Right. So when Marry Star said, I want to record you guys, we started going to Marry Star. And as we were moving around, he was like, he wanted to do the five man thing. That's when Brooke said, well, I know somebody be perfect for this. And went and got Ronnie. Brought Ronnie to one of the rehearsals down at Orchard Park. One day he just sat him in, they said, y'all stand here. Very similar to how it was in the new audition story. He said, you stand right here and y'all just do what y'all have been doing. Ronnie's standing in his spot. Right. And he just knew right what he just, it was already there. Right. He just killed it. It was like, oh, wait a minute. What is this? Right. Felt right in. Right. Oh, this is our dude. Because we had tried like two or three other people from Orchard Park. Yeah. They didn't work out. Yeah. This wasn't working out, right? Yeah. And we could feel that. We could tell it was just something off. And then when he slid Ronnie in the way he did, he had already taught him at home. They lived together. When he came in and slid into his style, he was like, ooh, this is it. Never look back. Yeah. So that's how Ron got in the group. He wasn't actually living in Orchard Park growing up with us during the time we was coming up. Got it. Got it. Did everybody accept Ron right away? Everybody. Yes, we did. Everybody looked. When he did what he did that day at rehearsal, we loved him. Some of the people at Orchard Park did and we had to do a name, Brian Baker. It was like, well, you don't let him in the group. He don't even look like you. He would kill him right off the bat. He was like, I'mma bust his head. It's like, you ain't gonna do nothing. That's our boy. Man, he was like, that's wild. Right. Haters. Yeah. He got red hair. He don't even look like you. That's how he taught. He don't even look like you. We was cracking up. We talked about it for years. We still bring him up from every now and then. We just laugh about them days, man. But that's what it was. We accepted him right away. Some of the people around us was trying to figure out why he ain't from Orchard Park. Well, obviously he earned his keep. Oh my God, did he? Yeah, I'm saying like. Ron is pretty much the blueprint behind, you know, without Ron in there, it ain't the same. You know what it is. He just kind of, he is the foundation in there. That pillar that you think of the new addition, you think of pretty, Ron with his pretty eyes and his little skin just killing the ladies. And he's a dancing machine. We keep up with him when we trying to make sure we got our stuff together on stage. Well, it's amazing because, you know, 40 years, you said 45 in the game, whatever. And y'all still moving around like young cats. That's crazy. And I mean, you know, obviously, you know, we're all getting a little older. So like those dance steps take us told a little bit more than what it used to. But at the same time, y'all still. The bio freezes on deck. Then gay orc meant all that stuff is. The tiger bomb. That's on deck. Yeah, you know, but we still have fun doing it. You know, we want to instill and press the audience when we when we do those moves, we want to get that same reaction we used to get when we first did it. So we want to get more into that later on in the conversation. But the fact that you guys got together, Maurice discovered you guys was doing a talent show, right? Yeah, we did his time. The Hollywood talent night. Okay. We performed and came in second. Yeah, we came in second. Who came in first? The Boston rappers. Yeah. That part right there. Oh, my God. I was not feeling it. So they was booing and mad when they came up there. They let them have it. That's why. Maurice, just like the new edition story, it shows and he's like, I can't let this happen. I'm going to give away two, two record contracts. So, you know, there was no formality done that night. Yeah. Later on, we were rehearsing at my house. Yeah. And I just remember we just started talking about, man, remember that guy, Maurice said he was going to record us anyway. We should just roll up on him for try to find him. And that's how it all really happened. We just was thinking about reminiscing about what he said in front of the audience that night or to us that night. Yeah. And we rolled over to his house, bring his doorbell. And he was like, who are these guys then? He looked out the door and we said, he says, we're calling the new edition. He said, oh, yeah, I remember you guys. Right. He let us in, you know, and then he sat us around the piano. And we started messing with us and seeing what was going on. And he came up with Jealous Girl. That's the first song that we ever did. Oh, wow. Jealous Girl was the first one we were singing around the piano. I wasn't singing. I was kind of just observing quite a quiet and yeah, some dude and everybody Bobby's going for it. Yeah. And that's how I ended with the song. Right. Because Bobby just started saying, okay, why don't you guys take this set home? Yeah. And when you get it, you feel like you got it down, come back to me. And probably about four or five days later, we came back to his house. We got it, man. And suddenly the other he still hear the sense. Okay. Yeah. And then he started playing some more. So I'm going to try something else. This one, he started going, playing. And he started singing. I was like, in my mind, I'm out of snapped. Right. Now I'm hearing what I've been listening to. Yeah. Because it's funky. I'm hearing that ABC. I want you back. I'm hearing that. Yeah. Familiarity. I was like, oh, no, ain't no shyness. And I just broke. And I started singing it when he was, he went around the room, but I started singing it. And when he got to me, he was like, that's it. Yeah. That's that voice I remember from the Yeah. Who was singing at the Hollywood talent night. Yeah. He said, all right, cool. Then he started working with that. I want you guys to learn this. And then we, he walked this process in the studio, then we started recording it. Oh, he made some joints. Popcorn love came in. Then there's this, then smashers. Then that album came together like that. Let me, let me just go back and state that even though Ralph didn't do the entirely on a jealous girl, he did one. Yeah. It at the end. I did come in. Oh my God. That's creepy. My grandmother used to, my mother, my father's mother, she said, baby, I like his number. It's, it's so high. I like this. I was like, what's that grandma? We don't like it boys. It's just so high. Well, the thing is, is that like when we first heard it, yeah, back again, back in Philly night, everybody was like, yo, he like little Michael. Like that's the first thing that we, we heard like, and, and, and just like you said, with Candy Girl, it gave us those feels of I want you back and that, that whole thing, but just up with a modern twist, which is, was genius because of Maurice, because he understood that it was important to have legacy sounding music, music that people heard before and fell in love with, but just adding a modern day twist to it. He always said, when he told us, I mean, later on, we found out that he was always wanting to do a remake of the job. He wanted him and his brothers to do it. That never really worked out that way. I guess he had his brother, Michael Johnson, who ended up doing Pac Jam, Space Cowboy. Yeah, that's the, he had some big records on his own, but they never did the Jackson thing when they was coming up. So he got it off through no addition. That's what he was doing. Yeah. So when we got in there, I was green. Yeah. And he, a lot of stuff, he had his voice in the background. Yeah. He was already there and he would add me to that background. Right. In some instances, you hear it. You hear it. Most of the time, it was just do this, do this, do this. And I could follow him because I was remembering just how Michael's did it. You know, should have never told me is like your daddy's mama's pearl or some of them songs. It was like the other stuff that was on those albums. I was just figuring out how to make that sound like I used to hear it coming through the speakers. Yeah, I did. Like I wanted it to sound like that. And that's all I was mimicking. Yeah. And it helped. It worked. No, it absolutely worked. Like I said, it was the Jackson's and our new modern twist. We was the first ones trying to merge like rapping and R&B. Right. And I mean, it was not like really a thing where R&B records were rapping on it. Y'all modernized. We started our record that way. Y'all modernized a sound that was already familiar, but y'all gave it what we were listening to as kids. You know, the hip hop element and that whole thing. So yeah, it worked out. And it's crazy because again, living in Philly, like that's all our little girls used to like listen to. But you got those like me listening like, yo, who is these like, these taking over Philly taking over every taking over Philly. Now we got to have all the girls. That was what we wanted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Y'all had all the girls. That's all we wanted. Greedy asses. That's all we wanted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mission accomplished. Congratulations. I'm asking y'all, you shall receive. Because boy, I ain't going to lie. I was a little hate. How a little hate. You know what I'm saying? Because the girl I liked used to walk around school with a Michael Jackson button and a new edition button. Makes you feel like. That was it. That was okay. That was okay. That was okay. That was okay. That was okay. You know, but me and my boys, it's more to a place. We're fitting to come up. Right, right. We next. That's how we do it when we get in the game. Yeah, we heard that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Candy boys. Yeah, right, right. Getting off the bus. We are. We heard all of it. Right. Y'all just mad. We ain't doing good if you ain't mad. All right. It's true. How about that? Mm-hmm. That's that's a bar right there. We're going to let that sit for a second. Right. And then we're going to move over to the conversation. So yeah, you're all over the place. Y'all getting all the girls. Yeah. Doing arenas, TV, the whole nine yards and all was good. But then there was a shift. Yeah. To the point where Bobby got kicked out of the girl. Mm-hmm. All right. Now let's because we're all family. So we could talk like this. So they ain't nobody else and nobody. Bobby was effing up. All right. Okay. So he wasn't showing up this time. He wasn't doing this. This is being real. Okay. Now he said it to the point that he eventually because he could have came back to the group if you really wanted to. But at that point, Bobby had made his mind up. He was going to be a solo artist. He just wasn't into complying with all of the rules and the stuff that as no addition, we had put on the table. You know, there was also a protocol that came to moves recording. We went in the studios and they was going off the cooler now voice, the candy girl for this. They want records. The producers wanted them to, you know, if you like the record for the Jackson's, I want Michael to sound right with him. Yeah, sure. So they didn't have, they didn't even know what the other guys could really do. So he got tired of all of that stuff, man. So Bobby wasn't showing up to stuff like shot solid gold performances. Oh, yeah. We had this conversation. So train major television before he was just like right in the bed when we got up that morning to go do this stuff. Wow. It's like, we got to go now. You know, and they got into Big O beat Khalil. Yeah. One time we had to jump. But we had the karate size Khalil. Yeah. It's like, hey, man, don't put your hands on because he took the table. We didn't know him like that. He flipped Bobby over and everything. Hey, hey, you're going too far. We started, we started flying over and he's dumping and getting us off. He could kill us if he wanted to. Right, right, right, right, right. But we like that. Now you going too far, man. We just came to wake him up, dude. You ain't going, we don't know you like that. Yo, knock it off. Yeah. You can't be swinging. You can't be touching our boy. He was flipping him up. He just flipped him up the bed. Oh, he flipped the whole couch. Oh my. Yeah, that's yeah. And we was like, uh-uh. Yeah. But it was that kind of stuff. It was coming to that where after a while the management and the record company, everybody's stepping up and saying, man, he's going to ruin y'all. Y'all got, you know, sponsorships and Disney's and stuff that want to work with y'all. Y'all can't be working with that. This dude was getting caught doing this. He's getting busted doing these things that kept happening. So the group came to a decision and said, man, we got to make a decision. Okay. There was a vote. There was a vote. Who voted Bobby out? Well, far as I know, it was everybody else. Because I had me and Bobby was like this. Because we weren't in the room per se and everybody raised a hand like they did in the thing. It kind of was going around individually. Somebody was stepping to everybody. And I believe there was one gathering at some point where everybody was in the room. I never really was for it. I just felt it was going to be too much backlash. We all started together. We need to just figure and work it out. And I talked to Bobby and his mom. Ms. Brown was like, hey, listen, you know, I'll make the stance. I said, I ain't doing it if it's not all of us. And that would have been if it was Michael, Ronnie, Ricky, any other group members. I would have had the same position. Like it just don't feel right for me, man. This was the group. But when I stepped to Bobby, he's like, they already offered Bobby to make a move. General had already went to Boston to talk to Bobby about doing his own thing. And Bobby accepted it. So by the time he came back around for all of that type of stuff, he was like, I'm going for it, man. I want to do the solo thing. I said, you sure? He said, yes. And that was it. At that point, he was going, he had made his own decision up to be honest with you. But it was forced. He had, he already was kind of pushed out and was back in Boston trying to figure out what he was going to do next. Right. And when General stepped to him, he figured out what that was. And because he still, like I said, he had the option to come back. Yeah. But he didn't want to. And then there was four. And there was four, bro. Y'all still make a hit, though. We kept it moving. We kept it moving. We had to do what we had to do. And it worked for a second, you know? Yeah. Y'all still did. Actually, the last album we did, Bobby was, as a force, Bobby was still there. Yeah. Right. No, he wasn't. Yeah, he was. The last album, before he left, we were working on the awful love out. And he's singing on a couple of those sub tracks. And that was when he was, he started making the transition. I see. I see. So, boy, y'all ventured out. Did y'all think. And who decided or what decided that you guys wanted to add a member? And then once that came about as a two-part question, why Johnny? Bell Biv DeVoe, you can call him that now, decided they was going to add a new member. And it had nothing to do with Bobby. It was, I was working on that album, which I told my earlier, Living in the Dream project. And I'm just working on music. Well, we can use it for the group. Well, I was just venturing into writing and producing. Like, I loved it. I was doing that and creating music and poems and stuff before the new edition. With my uncles and by myself. So, it was just one of those things that I was really adamant to think we can come up with some fly stuff and start, just start being writers and producers as well as artists, you know? When they got wind of that project, somehow that turned into I'm leaving the group or I'm about to leave them behind. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to start doing my own thing, which was never my intention. I've never planned on leaving the new edition. Even if I had to drop during the solo records and producing it, I was, I'm not leaving this for that. I wasn't trading one all. It'd be great to do them all. Right. At some point, that was my thing. They got to them that they didn't feel too good about that. And so, they started looking back. They started looking into finding a new member. And so, when they started thinking about it, we had toured and did shows with Johnny in the past. We were in, I can't remember where this is. I think it's Bahamas, something like that. And then the talented teens, Hal Jackson's talented teens, is one of the first times we ran into Johnny. And then throughout our touring process, Johnny would pop up on some of the shows and come on the bus, say, what's up? We kick it, we became friends in that way. They just knew how much of a powerhouse he was and figured if they was going to try to make that move to replace me, they was going to have to find somebody that was dope. You know what I mean? Right, right. So, they went and got Johnny. They brought that idea to Joe Busby. Joe Busby told them, because he told me told them this, at least, that I don't need a new addition without Ralph Tresbev. And so, they had to figure it out, right? It came to Boston in my house. And that's the scene that's kind of in, at that point, I was offended. Like, y'all tried to replace me, man. Why was y'all, that's cold, you know? Yeah. I helped the major part of starting this whole thing, man. My blood, sweat and tears, I was just pissed. When I came to my house in Boston, I wasn't trying to hear all of that, man, we need to get this and do that. And I said, man, keep it moving. Then I got a visit from General and Lord Silas Jr. at the time. And they said, man, we need you to do the sound from it. If you do it, I'll make sure you're good. You can do the solo thing and all that stuff. Blah, blah, blah, we'll take care of it. And so, that's how Johnny got in the group. But I still didn't know he was still going to be a part of the group. They just was asking me to come back. Right. So I said, okay, cool. And then they told me it was going to be bringing in Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Let's go. I'm all in now, right? I fly to Minneapolis. And when I get to Minneapolis, we're going to the studio. And there's Johnny Gill ready to record. It's like, what's this? You know? Wow. That's how I found out that they was trying to put him in the group. Hey, hey, what's up, y'all? I hope y'all enjoyed part one now. Remember, if you want to check out part two, you got to join the On That Note Patreon community. So do it right now and you'll be able to see part two of what was going down. All right? See you there.