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Authors: Bobby Brown, Nick Chiles
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we all used, which is entertainment. I wanted to put all of those elements together and become this super-entertainer, jumping off risers and things like that.
To make my new record, I crisscrossed the country, working with great producers like LA Reid and Babyface, and Teddy Riley. When we were finishing our sessions on the West Coast with LA and Babyface, I just felt like we weren’t quite done. I wanted to add more aggression to the album, something that had a harder edge to it. That’s what brought me to the East Coast and New York City, where I was walking down the street when I literally bumped into Teddy Riley carrying his Casio keyboard under one arm. Though he was only two years older than me, Teddy had been a hot producer for years. He had started working on some stuff with his new group, Guy, but they were still a couple of years away from releasing their groundbreaking album, The Future .
“What’s up, Teddy?” I said, genuinely pleased to see him.
“What’s up, Bobby?” he said.
“Dude, we need to get together, do some songs,” I said.
“Man, that would be great. I would love that,” he responded.
So that’s how I wound up messing around in his little studio in his apartment in Harlem, where he grew up. I took out my cassettes and played him a few grooves I had been working on. We were just brainstorming, throwing stuff out there and vibing off each other. He put down a pounding drumbeat and I immediately thought of this groove that had been bouncing around in my head for months. It haunted me; I would play with it every time I got on a keyboard. So when I heard Teddy’s drumbeat, I got on his keyboard andI played it for him. Da dadadadum . Teddy loved it. That became the unmistakable, addictive hook for “My Prerogative,” which many consider my signature song—and the song that announced the arrival of a pounding, rhythmic, hip-hop-inspired approach to R & B that came to be called new jack swing. With “My Prerogative,” I was definitely trying to make a statement about leaving New Edition and being on my own. I could do what I wanted, play what I wanted, spend my money where I wanted. Because of a contract dispute he was embroiled in at the time, Riley isn’t listed as a writer and producer on the credits of “My Prerogative.” He just got credited with mixing, but his influence is all over that record.
When Don’t Be Cruel came out, it was like a bomb exploded on the American music scene—and in my life. I don’t think I was fully ready for it. I was in awe of the success of that album. We stayed out on the road almost three years touring on that record, traveling across the globe. The first single was “Don’t Be Cruel,” and I rapped at one point in the song, so the radio wouldn’t play it. This was 1988 and there were still many pop radio stations that considered rap some kind of scary black thing. So we took out the rap interlude so that we could get pop radio play. But then a funny thing happened—MTV started playing the video, featuring my rap. After that, the pop stations started playing the original version of the song, with my rap included. MTV set the standard.
We recorded forty songs and picked the best twelve. Nine of the cuts wound up going out as singles, nearly the wholealbum. I became the first teenager since Stevie Wonder to hit number one on the Billboard chart, topping both the pop and R & B charts. Don’t Be Cruel wound up as the top-selling album of 1989, selling over five million copies in that year alone (and more than eight million total over the years). I won a Grammy in 1990 for Best Male R & B Vocal Performance.
Along with my swagger and my music, I also introduced the world to my haircut, which came to be known as the Gumby. The haircut actually came about as an accident. I had a flattop at the time, and I was sitting in the chair of a famous barber in New York named Dinny Mo. Something happened and the razor slipped out of his hand. I think
To make my new record, I crisscrossed the country, working with great producers like LA Reid and Babyface, and Teddy Riley. When we were finishing our sessions on the West Coast with LA and Babyface, I just felt like we weren’t quite done. I wanted to add more aggression to the album, something that had a harder edge to it. That’s what brought me to the East Coast and New York City, where I was walking down the street when I literally bumped into Teddy Riley carrying his Casio keyboard under one arm. Though he was only two years older than me, Teddy had been a hot producer for years. He had started working on some stuff with his new group, Guy, but they were still a couple of years away from releasing their groundbreaking album, The Future .
“What’s up, Teddy?” I said, genuinely pleased to see him.
“What’s up, Bobby?” he said.
“Dude, we need to get together, do some songs,” I said.
“Man, that would be great. I would love that,” he responded.
So that’s how I wound up messing around in his little studio in his apartment in Harlem, where he grew up. I took out my cassettes and played him a few grooves I had been working on. We were just brainstorming, throwing stuff out there and vibing off each other. He put down a pounding drumbeat and I immediately thought of this groove that had been bouncing around in my head for months. It haunted me; I would play with it every time I got on a keyboard. So when I heard Teddy’s drumbeat, I got on his keyboard andI played it for him. Da dadadadum . Teddy loved it. That became the unmistakable, addictive hook for “My Prerogative,” which many consider my signature song—and the song that announced the arrival of a pounding, rhythmic, hip-hop-inspired approach to R & B that came to be called new jack swing. With “My Prerogative,” I was definitely trying to make a statement about leaving New Edition and being on my own. I could do what I wanted, play what I wanted, spend my money where I wanted. Because of a contract dispute he was embroiled in at the time, Riley isn’t listed as a writer and producer on the credits of “My Prerogative.” He just got credited with mixing, but his influence is all over that record.
When Don’t Be Cruel came out, it was like a bomb exploded on the American music scene—and in my life. I don’t think I was fully ready for it. I was in awe of the success of that album. We stayed out on the road almost three years touring on that record, traveling across the globe. The first single was “Don’t Be Cruel,” and I rapped at one point in the song, so the radio wouldn’t play it. This was 1988 and there were still many pop radio stations that considered rap some kind of scary black thing. So we took out the rap interlude so that we could get pop radio play. But then a funny thing happened—MTV started playing the video, featuring my rap. After that, the pop stations started playing the original version of the song, with my rap included. MTV set the standard.
We recorded forty songs and picked the best twelve. Nine of the cuts wound up going out as singles, nearly the wholealbum. I became the first teenager since Stevie Wonder to hit number one on the Billboard chart, topping both the pop and R & B charts. Don’t Be Cruel wound up as the top-selling album of 1989, selling over five million copies in that year alone (and more than eight million total over the years). I won a Grammy in 1990 for Best Male R & B Vocal Performance.
Along with my swagger and my music, I also introduced the world to my haircut, which came to be known as the Gumby. The haircut actually came about as an accident. I had a flattop at the time, and I was sitting in the chair of a famous barber in New York named Dinny Mo. Something happened and the razor slipped out of his hand. I think
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