John Morrison on World Cafe
Boyz II Men’s Cooleyhighharmony | courtesy of the artist
World Cafe
The Culture Corner: 40 years ago, Boyz II Men flipped the script on R&B
Dive into the career of Boyz II Men, how they were shaped by what came before them, and impacted everything that came after.
Setlist
Jun
16
John Morrison on Boyz II Men
World Cafe
- Motownphilly
- End of the Road
- I Only Have Eyes For You
- I'll Make Love To You
Forty years ago this year, in Philadelphia, one of music’s most influential singing groups was born. They would call themselves Boyz II Men.
A few years after Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris, Shawn Stockman and Michael McCary found each other, they put out “Motownphilly.”
World Cafe correspondent John Morrison has a new book called Boyz II Men: 40th Anniversary Celebration. Today, he joins us to talk about how the group changed popular music.
“When Boyz II Men came out in 1991, they updated that old-school R&B male vocal group archetype, but they did it for the hip-hop generation,” Morrison says.
In this edition of Culture Corner, Morrison dives into the career of Boyz II Men, how they were shaped by what came before them, and about their impact on everything that came after.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.