Cool it now
Fans of ’80s hip hop and R&B may remember R&B Boston-based band New Edition, the group that included musicians Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Bobby Brown, Ronnie DeVoe and Ralph Tresvant. They saturated radio waves throughout the earlier part of the decade, putting out hits reminiscent of Jackson 5, such as “Candy Girl,” “Cool It Now,” and “Mr. Telephone Man.” But after those initial years of success, the band started to fall apart. That became especially apparent as Bobby Brown pursued a solo career, earning him a boot out of the group. From there, three of the band’s founding members came together to form a post-New Edition band, Bell Biv Devoe, in 1989.
Today, though, a new band is back in town — RBRM, which consists of four of those original New Edition members. To simplify, RBRM simply stands for the first letter of its members’ names: Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell and Michael Bivins. Their next stop? Foxwoods’ Grand Theater on Saturday.
The tour comes at an interesting time. Television network BET recently started airing their newest drama miniseries, “The Bobby Brown Story,” a sequel to network’s 2017 three-part miniseries “The New Edition Story.” “The Bobby Brown Story,” as can be assumed from its title, details the life of Brown and “his side of the story” in the aftermath of Whitney Houston’s (his ex-wife) death in 2012. Additionally, this tell-all series is partly co-produced by Brown himself. A world tour as a reunited New Edition makes for an intriguing case study, then, in positive PR tactics (there are always two sides to every coin) but will obviously still be a treat for anyone who loved the band from the get go.
RBRM: Bell Biv Devoe & Bobby Brown, 8 p.m. Saturday, Foxwoods’ Grand Theater; $68-$158; 1-800-200-2882.