A few short years ago, Boyz II Men dominated the game. But as the multi-platinum quartet made the real-life leap into manhood, they went though an early mid-life crisis. In the year of the "Thong Song," can their squeaky clean R&B still get love?

A warm darkness blankets the University of Southern California, home to LA radio station the Beat 100.3's annual Urban Music Festival. Under the watchful eye of a pale moon, hundreds mill around an empty stage, chomping on barbecued chicken, beef skewers, and other finger-licking summer delicacies.

The crowd, having already seen performances by up-and-coming acts such as Spooks and Avant, eagerly waits for the headliners to take the stage. These people want something not too hard and not too soft. They want Boyz II Men. And Wanya Morris, Mike McCary, Nathan Morris, and Shawn Stockman, coordinated in cream linen short sets and high-top Nikes, want them too. Amped and raring to go, Nathan speaks for the group backstage when he says, "Our creative juices have been stifled for the past three years. It's been like watching people turn double Dutch and not being able to jump in."

But when these four finally do take the stage, at around 9 P.M., the feverent applause that greets them slowly dissolves into low, comfortable rumble. The speakers are popping, their mikes keep conking out, and feedback prevents the guys from hearing themselves. Michael, a.k.a. Bass, is singing full out but he's sitting on stage rather than doing the dance steps. And to the obvious disappointment of many, they're performing only songs from their new album, Nathan, Michael, Shawn, Wanya, depriving fans of the classics - like "Please Don't Go," and "On Bended Knee" - they'd waited all day to hear. Bad move.

Picking up on the audience's utter lack of enthusiasm by the third song, Shawn asks, "Are you all bored?" "No," the crowd answers rather unconvincingly. The Boy trudge on, but the show doesn't get any better until the very end, when they unexpectedly launch into 1992's smash hit, "End of the Road." As if given a jolt of electricity, the crowd comes to life. Lighters in the air, arms swaying to and fro, tears flowing down glowing faces, everyone is mesmerized by the fab four. "It's unnatural/You belong to me/I belong to you." All is forgiven but, for Boyz II Men, not forgotten.

The moments following the ill-fated show are tense. On the tour bus, the group holds a private meeting in the back room. Wanya's anger seeps through the locked door. Fuming over the technical problems that plagued their performance, as well as the fact that performing mostly new songs and one classic wasn't the smartest idea, he yells, "It's like watching a basketball game and the first three quarters are fucked up!" A conspicuous silence takes a seat on the bus. Boyz II Men have seen better days.

When the group burst on the scene nearly a decade ago, it was as if the world had never heard such mellifluous harmonies. Innocently seducing listeners with their angelic voices and choirboy charm, Boyz II Men were pure pop and proud of it. Not ones for the baggy leather getups that raunchy Jodeci spotted, they opted for a prim, proper, spit-shine-clean image. Alexander Vanderpool chic they were, in their argyle vests and bow ties, high-top fades picked to perfection. Their critically acclaimed 1991 debut, Cooleyhighharmony, sold more than 9 million copies.

Every conceivable music award soon followed. The smash "End of the Road," from the Boomerang soundtrack, solidified their super-stardom and surpassed Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" for length of stay at #1 on the Billboard charts, remaining there for 13 weeks. Their 1994 hit "I'll Make Love to You," from their sophomore album, II, would remain at #1 for 14 weeks, tying the record set at the time by Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." This feat would make them only the third act in history to best themselves at #1.

By 1997, the Boyz were the biggest-selling artists in Motown's history: They performed at the 1996 Olympics, landed on Forbes magazine's list of highest paid entertainers and had a major boulevard in Camden, New Jersey, named after them. Boyz II Men mania was in full force.

But those were the '90's, an eternity ago, and now the fellas are no longer huggable, cuddly teens from the Cheesesteak City. Now they're grown-ass black men with the added weight and maturity to show for it. Daddies, uncles, fiancés - anachronisms in a Total Request Live world dominated by midriff-baring Lolitas, platinum-jewelry addicts, and the slickly choreographed boy bands that have doggedly followed in their footsteps and made millions duplicating their style.

"When we formed the group we wanted to be like Jodeci and Boyz II Men," Drew Lachey of 98 Degrees told The Chicago Sun Times. "Boyz II Men had the biggest influence on us as a group," says James Lance Bass of *NSYNC. "And five years ago when we started, we modeled ourselves after them and set goals that we only hoped would reach the success of Boyz II Men had achieved."

Yet that success may be the very thing that keeps Boyz II Men from making it big again. Few super acts have successfully resurrected their careers. Hammer, En Vogue, Naughty by Nature, and New Kids on the Block are just a few performers whose comeback attempts were lackluster at best. It's something the Boyz have thought long and hard about. "We've been trying to figure out where we fit in," admits Shawn. Wanya chimes in, "But there was never a doubt that we'd come back out. There's just to much love for the music."

"Right now our biggest pressure is outdoing ourselves," Shawn continues. "We love our old records, but we want to have a future beyond that. We're tying to prove to ourselves that there is life after 'End of the Road.'"

The ballads on Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya are in keeping with traditional Boyz II Men style. Refusing to join the back-that-thing-up bacchanal that so much of R&B has become, they still their time with the ladies, proving real men don't have to rush. "Incredible from your legs up to your mouth/You look so edible," they sing on "What the Deal." "Everybody is singing about sexual stuff," Wanya says. "The 'Thong Song,' all that R&B hip-hop - we can do that, but will people accept us? No, because people don't look to us for that." Nathan adds, "We have a different way of expressing our sexuality. Someone may say, 'I wanna do you,' but we'll say, 'I'll make love to you.' Someone says 'thong.' We say 'lingerie.'"

Showing they can still hang with the young'uns, the guys get a little experimental on the album's up-tempo tracks. "Bounce, Shake, Move, Swing," for example, sounds like it was produced by Moby; and on "Beautiful Women," a catchy Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs-produced ode to all the lovely ladies around the world, the Boyz ride a sultry Spanish beat. "We want to grab people at the clubs," Wanya explains. "We haven't really had a club hit since 'Motownphilly.'"

It doesn't take long to surmise that Boyz II Men would make for a pretty boring VH1 Behind the Music episode. That's a compliment, when one considers how much trouble four teenagers touring the world for two years could've gotten into. There are no scandals in their closets. In fact, the closest thing to drama with these guys is the under-wraps relationship Wanya had with singer Brandy Norwood for three years. "She was 16 and I was 20," Wanya says. "I think I was an experience for her, but we kinda just grew apart."

When asked whether Sonia Norwood, Brandy's infamous stage mother, was to blame, Wanya treads lightly. "Her mom wasn't the reason we broke up, but let's just say she helped in the growing-apart process." He and Brandy haven't spoken in a while, Wanya says. "I know she has animosity towards me. I shied away from her and I admit that I could've done some things differently." But the singer who claims he was Brandy's first love adds that she wasn't the only one left brokenhearted. "I felt like I was being dogged first. It just became a situation where we kept dogging each other." Brandy declined comment.

Now that Wanya has found the Black Israelite faith, he's no longer dogging or being dogged. Introduced to the religion more than a year ago, he says being an Israelite has humbled him and made him a better man. He has an 11-month year old daughter, Anya, by his girlfriend, whom he affectionately calls Toy. And Boyz II Men's resident comedian is serious when he states, "I'm not a whore monger. I'm a Jew. Christ was a Jew. I want to be like Chris." Nathan is happily single - "Marriage, uh-uh, not for me" - Shawn is engaged, and Michael has been happily hitched for a year. He has two sons of his own and has adopted his wife Venus's child. You can see the mini-vans dancing in his eyes when he discusses married life. "It's a blessing to wake up next to the person you love," Michael enthuses. "I love being a daddy. It makes life worth living."

Unfortunately, all is not well in Michael's picket-fence world. He suffers from a debilitating case of scoliosis, and his condition has put a considerable strain on the dance-routine-driven group. "I'm in severe pain every day," Michael says. "I can't do any of the dancing. I can perform only vocally." He may never dance again, a possibility the group is still struggling to come to terms with. "We're a quartet. And when one of us is on the disabled list, it's hard," Shawn says solemnly. "Like being a three-legged dog," Wanya adds.

But according to Shawn, hard times are nothing new to the group. When they were working on their 1997 album, Evolution (a commercial flop compared to their previous chart-busters), the guys came close to calling it quits. "That was a real hard moment," says Shawn, who, like Wanya, has become a Black Israelite. "Motown was in disarray. We were all arguing every day. Sometimes it even got close to fist-fights. We've seen the ugly side of the business and each other. And we realized that as quickly as it comes it can be taken away."

Though a lot wiser than when they first came out, Boyz II Men still don't understand some things about the music industry. One: bling-bling hysteria. "We've been watching the overindulgence of our people, and it's crazy," Shawn observes. "Is it really about having hot jewels and cars all the time?" Two: the near nonexistent state of R&B. "Back in the day, rappers used to fight to get 16 bars on an R&B song. Now we're the featured guests on hip-hop albums. That's not right," says Nathan. Three, the most baffling: how acts with little or no talent blow up. "We'll be singing our damn hearts out, throats bleeding, harmonizing, then someone comes on some bullshit and goes platinum," Wanya says. "We don't mind the white groups. It's just that if you're going to do your thing, sound right. Don't do all this stuff in the studio and get on-stage and sound like dookie," he huffs.

The guys are mum on who exactly they feel sounds like "dookie," but they agree *NSYNC is "dope." "With the other groups, it's almost like they took five guys from a soap opera and told them to sing," Nathan says with a chuckle. "Ken dolls," Shawn bristles. "It's hard to watch people who can't sing become successful," Nathan continues. "It's like watching the scrub get all the playing time while the best players sit on the bench."

"You see," Shawn explains, "for us it's always been about the music." Wanya adds, "We were never the cute light-skinned cats with curly hair. It was never about a gimmick with us." Says Nathan, "If it's a beauty contest, they'll win. But we can sing circles around 90% of those cats."

Producer Jermaine Dupri, who worked with Boyz II Men on a remix for their new album, wholeheartedly agrees. "Can't nobody sing better than them," he declares. "When I hear them sing, it gives me chills. Once they get back in the groove they're going to be hard to deal with." Let's hope Boyz II Men will be as they always have been: not too hard and not too soft.

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