By Deardra
Shuler
Lovers of
ballads, romance, R&B and red hot euphony will love the music of
Dru Hill who are presently on tour celebrating their 20 year
anniversary. As part of the tour, Dru Hill will appear at Lehman
Center on Saturday, March 26th at 8:00 p.m. Lehman Center
for the Performing Arts is located at 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West
in the Bronx. Dru Hill wont appear alone. They will share the
Lehman Center stage with artists Kenny Lattimore and Jon B, so the
venue may need to keep their fire extinguishers handy because the
evening promises to be filled with hot, hot, sizzling hot music.
This writer had
the opportunity to talk with the 4-member Maryland bred group who
make up Dru Hill. The talented singers consist of Tamir “Nokio”
Ruffin; lead singer Mark “Sisqo” Andrews; Larry “Jazz”
Anthony and Antwaun “Tao” Simpson, aka Nokio, Sisqo, Jazz and
Tao.
“We were
raised in Baltimore and Annapolis. Some of us started off in the
Church so the group began singing gospel songs under the name 14K
Harmony. We sang in Church and at talent shows, so the music started
to have a blend of church and rhythm and blues. Our music was not
churchy per se, it was more inspirational and featured what goes on
in people's lives. We all came together because of the music. Jazz
and I went to performing art schools but we all had vocal training,”
said Nokio, the group founder, in-house producer, songwriter, dancer,
singer and rapper.
After switching
to R&B from gospel, the group was discovered by Hiram Hicks who
spotted them at a talent show and signed them to Island Records.
Their first single was entitled “Tell Me,” which rose to #5 on
the R&B Billboard chart. Their first album, “Dru Hill” went
platinum featuring the hits “In My Bed,” “Never Make A
Promise,” and “Whatever You Need.” They garnered the 1997
Billboard Music Award for Top R&B Song, Top R&B Artists and
R&B/Hip Hop Song Artist of the Year. They also gained the 1998
Soul Train Best R&B/Soul Single and Best R&B/Soul Album
Awards. Dru Hill went on to record “We're Not Making Love No
More,” written by Babyface and co-produced by Daryl Simmons and
Babyface for the film “Soul Food.” The song went multi-platinum.
Following was their song “How Deep Is Your Love,” which spent 3
weeks as #1 and was eventually featured in the film, Rush Hour. The
song was also part of their 1998 second multi-platinum album, Enter
the Dru, climbing to the #2 spot on both the Billboard Top
200 and R&B album charts selling 2 million copies. The album
also included hit songs “These Are the Times,” “Beauty” and
“You Are Everything.”
When asked how
the group came up with their name they mentioned a famous park in
Baltimore. “When we first started, the record company was trying
to think up a name for us. They had a few ideas including calling us
“The Together Brothers,” none of which fit. One day while on the
phone I was asked the name of the famous park in Baltimore which is
called Druid Hill. But all the locals call it Dru Hill. It was a
perfect name to call ourselves because Dru Hill will always serve as
a reminder where we came from,” explained the group who have also
created music and won awards individually.
Dru Hill talked
about the need to understand the making of music as well as being
astute about the business of music. “We were lucky to get into the
music industry when we did. When we first started the first person we
met was John McClain of Interscope Records. John went on to be
Michael Jackson's management. John told us that if all we did is
sing we would not be in the music business long. So we were groomed
to be self sufficient. Therefore, its been great to share with our
fans all the talents that God has blessed us with. Artists can get
cheated, robbed and worse make bad music. We were lucky that we came
into the music business at a time when artist development was really
skilled and prevalent and labels invested money into the artists.
These days, if someone has a hot song and enough people hear it, the
label basically will add money to keep whatever recording artists are
doing ongoing, but will put little work into developing the music.
The attitude is, if the music has sales potential, everyone wins.
Even though it may not be the best music in the world or even the
best production. The music world thinks few care about talent or
being talented any more, so the labels may as well sell whatever they
can,” commented the group members.
Sisqo, Jazz and
Nokio took a hiatus from late 1999 to 2002, so they could all pursue
their own projects. Sisqo's debut album Unleash the Dragon
featured the single “Thong Song” which became a hit and pop
success, establishing Sisqo as a name outside Dru Hill. Jazz (who
was absent from my interview) put out a R&B/Soul album and Nokio
worked with his rock band Black Angel Down. Tao came into the group
in 2008 after winning a talent contest called “Dru Idol,” making
him the fourth member of the group.
As mentioned
previously, Dru Hill is presently on tour celebrating their 20 years
together. For tickets to their Saturday, March 26th show at
Lehman Center call the Box Office at 718-960-8833 or go on line at
www.LehmanCenter.org.
Also interested parties
who wish to follow Dru Hill can do so via
http://www.druhillonline.com/ or get the Dru Hill app from the App
store, or via Amazon Google Play.
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