Nineteen years later, stepping outside of the Belvedere for a smoke, he wears a knit cap covering his purple Mohawk-still a sharp dresser, as cool as the diamonds in his ears. “I remember singing in the City College courtyard and a workman dropped five dollars down,” recalls the singer, who was already going by Nokio at the time. So it was no surprise when, as a lanky but sharp-dressed teen, Ruffin started a singing group called 14K Harmony.
His Uncle Irvin even bragged about a friendship with Motown king Smokey Robinson. His grandmother played piano by ear-any song you wanted to hear-and every Sunday he watched his mom wail in the church choir. Tamir Ruffin grew up surrounded by music. The quartet’s two-step mission is to remind R&B fans why they loved Dru Hill and to convince them to fall in love again. Male soul groups have dropped off the radar. It won’t be easy for the aging harmony specialists to land on top of the R&B heap again. Now, they’ve got a new album co-produced by fellow ’90s R&B refugee Keith Sweat, a single with hip-hop heavyweight Ludacris (“Rollercoaster”), and a forthcoming reality show on BET’s new Centric Network documenting the comeback, including infighting, real fighting-the trailer shows Sisqo and Nokio in a boxing ring-therapy sessions, and recording sessions. It was like no matter how mad we were at each other, there was no denying the magic we make together.” “I’d forgotten how good we sounded together. “Once we got together, it was like a party, and we started messing around in the booth,” says Jazz. But in 2008, Nokio, Sisqo, and manager Kevin Peck first discussed reuniting the group, and brought everybody together for a meeting. In the years since, band members have kept a low profile-except for Sisqo, who recently appeared on UK’s Celebrity Big Brother. Charges were dismissed, but the incident underlined the demise of Dru Hill. “We had done everything in excess and we were tired.” Later that year, Sisqo was arrested in front of his Randallstown home and charged with first-degree assault, resisting arrest, and reckless endangerment for allegedly firing a 9mm pistol at his neighbor’s brother’s car. “I started smoking a lot of weed and taking ecstasy,” Nokio confesses. Critics compared them to soul sensations Boyz II Men and Jodeci.īut, in a turn of events that could have been Xeroxed from a Behind the Music script, the former church boys were tempted by flashy demons and sank into a quicksand of jealousy, depression, and drug addiction, before disbanding in 2003. Over the course of three albums-Dru Hill (1996), Enter the Dru (1998) and Dru World Order (2002)-the quartet became R&B stars, with number-one hits “In My Bed,” “Never Make a Promise,” “How Deep is Your Love,” and “Wild Wild West” with Will Smith. “We were young, but we made grownup music,” jokes lead singer Sisqo, whose solo success with hits like “The Thong Song” and “Incomplete” boosted Dru Hill’s profile but also contributed to its demise. With songs ranging from the sexy drama of “In My Bed” to slow-dance anthem “Never Make a Promise,” the Baltimore-based quartet of Nokio, Jazz, Mark “Sisqo” Andrews, and James “Woody” Green (who is replaced by Antwuan “Tao” Simpson for the new album) presented a sophisticated, sultry form of R&B that made audiences-particularly women-swoon. Nokio was 17 in 1996, when Dru Hill’s self-titled debut became the soundtrack to a million love affairs.
“It’s not the same as when we were teenagers.”
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“We have to learn how to balance work and family,” says Tamir Ruffin, a.k.a. All three of the original members still in the group have kids, and family-friendly travel is a sticking point of their plans. The members of Dru Hill have gathered at the Belvedere Hotel’s Owl Bar to discuss the logistics of a forthcoming tour to promote their reunion album, InDRUpendence Day, the quartet’s first new music in eight years.Īs they talk, Larry Anthony Jr.-known as “Jazz”-orders a Long Island iced tea and a crab cake to take home to his wife.
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