Michael Lamont Bivins

American singer and producer Michael Lamont Bivins was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up in the Orchard Park Projects of Roxbury, a suburb of Boston, Bivins joined his friends Ricky Bell, Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, and Ralph Tresvant to form the boy band New Edition in 1978. New Edition paved the way for other boy bands with seven studio albums over 30 years. Rivalries between members and ambitions for solo careers led to fluctuations in band membership over the years. Notably in 1997, when New Edition was touring to promote their album "Home Again" (1996), a fist fight broke out on stage between Bobby Brown and Ronnie Devoe resulting in Michael Bivins and Bobby Brown leaving the tour early and an indefinite hiatus for the group. During another such hiatus in 1989, Bivins, Bell, and Devoe joined up to experiment in a new musical direction. Under the name Bell Biv Devoe, or BBD, they released the album "Poison" (1990). With a unique fusion of pop, hip-hop, funk and soul, BBD's new jack swing sound launched them to the top of the Billboard charts. Bell Biv Devoe would continue to tour and released three more studio albums over the years, though none as successful as the first. In addition to performing, Bivins is also a music manager, discovering and managing groups such as 702, Boyz II Men and MC Brains. In 2017, he served as producer for a biographical miniseries "The New Edition Story" (BET, 2017).