When the opportunity to spend the afternoon with Boyz II Men on their Philly territory arises, you don't think you jump at the chance. As Motown's mega-million-selling pop/soul quartet, who have broken all-time chart records, collected numerous awards, and have toured endlessly since the release of their multi-platinum II CD, Nathan, Shawn, Wanya, and Michael have brought that old soul feeling back to popular music. Now that they've reached the level of success they've always dreamed about, they're ready to not only branch out into other creative areas, but give a little back to the community. And what better way for music's top group to give back to the Philadelphia community that nutured their talents than by buying a recording studio? There they could guide new talents through recording demos and give helpful hints on making it in the business.
Nevertheless, when the word hit that Boyz II Men bought the old Kajem Studios complex in Pennsylvania's heavily-wooded Gladwyne area (just outside of Philadelphia), the press wanted to know more. Accordingly, Motown invited a couple of editors to Gladwyne to witness the official opening of the studios Boyz II Men re-named Stonecreek Recordings Studios. Though the place is so secluded that even though the chartered bus driver got lost, everyone coming in from New York arrived just before the activities commenced.
Just before Nathan, Wanya, Micheal, and Shawn came into the area where the reception was being held, the room filled to capacity with not only writers and editors from today's top magazines, and newspapers, but many camera crews from everyhere from BET to the local news crews. After the studio manager gave a brief history of te complex, being the place where the likes of Patti LaBelle, Hammer, Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, and Teddy Pendergrass have recorded, and home to the east coast's infamous basketball court-sized recording room, Motown's CEO, Jheryl Bubsy proudly took the floor.
"It seems like just yesterday that four semingly native, but determined kids came to my hotel here in Philadelphia and sung a capella for me, and talked about dreams," he recalls. "This is a business of dreams, and when you realize that this is another step in their dream for vision and growth, it's full of all the thigs that are important, like giving back and sharing. So obviously, we are very proud at Motown to be a part of their dreams. They have been a big part of my dream-the reviving of Motown, and to this day, they are the biggest act to walk through the doors of Motown in terms of unit sales, in such a short period. We are very proud of our association, and I am very proud to be here as they start a new venture, Stonecreek Studios."
When the four men of the hour walked into the room, flash bulbs went off, tape recorders went on, and the press went into the professional mode. It was unanimous, everyone wanted to know why they bought a recording studio, instead of going into some other music-related business. The boyz were eager to answer too. "When we decided to become a group," offered Wanya, "this was definetly a dream of ours. We knew we could do this somehow, some way. And God gave us the way." Shawn continued, "We just want to do a lot of positive things, to create great music and be ourselves. This is a place where we'll probably mostly be when we are at hom, when we have our off time. Hopefully we'll be here making great music for you." Keeping it short and meaningful, Nathan summed, "We are happy to just have a creative home."
However, when asked the significance of buying a studio in Philly, Nathan was already armed and ready with a reply. "We were born and raised here, and basically this is all we know. We have a lot of memories growing up here in Philadelphia; it's a great city. It's not only a great city because of our personal reasons, but because it's a great musical city. It's been one of te pioneering cities for what we listen to today, while the Gamble & Huff days of Philly International, when they were prominent with The O'Jays, Patti LaBelle, and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. Those people made a humongous difference, and put Philadelphia on the music map. Us being from Philadelphia, we want to represent in that same way. We are very proud of where we're from, and want to show our appreciation by staying in Philadelphia."
How do they plan to give back to the community through the studio, you may ask? Apparently these four have had many ways planned. Because they remember singing on the street, waiting for that record deal, they're adamant about creating better avenues for other upcoming Philly talent, Michael McCary, who already had a taste of developing new talent with Columbia's Keith Martin (through his Black Panther Productions), got even more specific. "We have a lot of plans with this studio. We're planning to kick off an event where we'll have a lot of musicans, artists, and performers submitting tapes. Then we'll take the tapes, sift through them all, pick the best ones and allow that person or group to come in and record their song free of charge, and have access to getting it to Philadelphia radio." Though there weren't any new talents to announce at the time, Shawn confessed, "We know that there are many people in this city alone that have a lot of friends who are talented in every way, and now that we have the opportunity and the ability to go and record them, we're going to try to help them out."
Meanwhile II continues selling past its seven million mark, on the strength of its smash hits; "I'll Make Love to You," "On Bended Knee," "Thank You" and the acoustic guitar-ropelled Babyface composition "Water Runs Dry." At press time, Motown was readying the release of the way-funky "Vibin," with remixes by urban music's popular producer Kenny Smoove. As a sort of rap-meets-R&B, Kenny added the rough raps of Eric Sermon, Keith Murray and his new act 2 Ta Da Head to the boyz' soother-out harmonies.
Proving that everything they touch turns to gold (in their case, platinum), just before they embarked on the second leg of their tour (with TLC and Montell Jordan in tow), Then II Now, their first home video, also went platinum. A 60-minute compilation of music videos, exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and never-before-revealed material, the video has consistently remained a top-seller since its fall 1994 release. "We feel very special about the video," started Wanya. "Then II Now was our chance to give people an inside look at Boyz II Men; to let them get a feel of how we are outside of music videos and the other things they're more used to. We're very happy that they like it."
And though II fever has hardly subsided, inquiring reporterswanted to get a jump on what direction they'll be taking their music next time around. "Well, we kind of don't really know," admiited Michael. "The way we write and what we do is all in feeling. We never sit down and say, 'Let's go this way, let's go that way.' We tried to do that for the second album, but it didn't work for us. So we started again, and everything we did from that point just went on feeling. That's the way we plan to steer not only our business careers, but our performing career as well."
When one reporter slipped in a final question about the possibility of group members going solo, they quickly replied in unison, "It will never happen!" As Wanya put it, "We're a unit, and we'll always be a unit."