Boyz II Men – Harmonizing Motorcity Casino Hotel

For the music world Boyz II Men represent a unique mixture of Hip Hop and R&B. The decision to give everyone in the group a leading role has had a big effect on their career and it’s rather unfortunate that their big bass voice, Michael McCary, decided to call it a day due to medical reasons. Nevertheless, Shawn, Nathan and Wanya still has some magic to spread and on Friday, 21 November, they will be spreading that magic in the Motorcity Casino Hotel, Detroit. Given that their new album “Collide” is set for release in September, fans can expect to hear mostly new material.

Looking back over the years Boyz II Men has definitely made an impact on the music industry. More importantly, they find themselves among record holders like Elvis Presley and The Beatles. These three were the only artists capable of replacing their own number one spot on the Billboards Top 100 with their own songs.  Boyz II Men also managed to beat Elvis’s record by staying in the top position for 13 weeks with the cover single “End of the road”. As if that isn’t impressive enough they went on to break their own record with the hit written by Babyface called “I’ll make love you to”, which stuck to no.1 for 14 weeks. However, a collaborative song with Mariah Carey, namely “One Fine Day”, still holds the record with 16 weeks.

The reason why Boyz II Men is so successful is because they are able to harness fans across musical borders. Instead of keeping to the typical boy-band guidelines and covering the strong hip-hop beats with more harmony, they captured the attention of just about everyone. Another unique aspect can be seen in the lyrics for some of the songs, for example “Water Runs Dry” and “Four Seasons of Loneliness”. Even though they didn’t play a huge part in writing the songs, they used writers who sought to break away from mainstream R&B image. This has garnered a lot of respect for the group and the covers they did outside of their genre also made them stand out. For those who don’t know, the song “Yesterday” that featured on their popular “II” album is in fact a Beatles song.

Times have changed and they have yet to produce so much success as they did at the start of their career. However, they are still doing very good and fans still love the harmony they deliver. The R&B and Hip-Hop scene is very unforgiving and new the talent only gets a couple of years, if they are lucky, before they are forgotten. Unlike Rock where there is a place for veterans in the classic section, guys like Boyz II Men have a much tougher time staying in the business. Well guess what, they have managed to do it quite elegantly. Their voices still flow perfectly together and they still contribute something different to the music industry.  To get your taste of old-school harmonizing then book your ticket for 21 November at the Motorcity Casino Hotel in Detroit.