Blackstreet, The Lox, Freeway, Beanie Sigel, Adina Howard, Sisqó, und Tweet

The group was born when founding members Chauncey Hannibal and Teddy Riley – who is no longer a member of the group – started making music together in New York. The pair brought on additional band members and quickly started attracting attention with their fresh and compelling sound.

In 1993 the group released their debut album, “Blackstreet”. The eponymous album was a huge hit and eventually went on to be certified platinum. One single from this debut album, "Before I Let You Go", was a top 10 hit on the US Billboard Chart and won the group scores of fans across the US.

Blackstreet followed up this impressive initial success with their second album, “Another Level”. The album outdid the success of its predecessor and peaked at number three on the US Billboard chart, largely due to the massive hit single, “No Diggity” which featured rap vocals by Dr. Dre. The track, which is now considered to be a rap classic and even won its own Grammy Award, was a breakout hit for the band and saw them become heavyweights within the American R&B world.

The band’s subsequent two albums “Finally” and “Level II” failed to best the success of “Another Level”. Tensions within the band caused the group to disband and reunite several times between 1999 and 2014 when Blackstreet announced they would be touring with members Chauncey Black, Levi Little, Mark Middleton and Eric Williams.

Blackstreet has collaborated with multiple artist including Dr Dre, Jay Z, Ja Rule and Janet Jackson. They have toured widely and have fans from all corners of the globe.

The group came together as high school students and started to perform local shows, developing a following. They had celebrity followers in Mary J. Blige who was the person who passed on their demo tape to Sean Combs, who later signed them to his labels. This was when the band confirmed their name The L.O.X, which stands for Living Off Experience.

They broke through to the mainstream, featuring on the song “It’s All About the Benjamins” after “We’ll Always Love Big Poppa”. They would go on to feature on many pop successes such as “Honey” by Mariah Carey and “Jenny From The Block” by Jennifer Lopez. The group released their debut album “Money, Power & Respect” on January 13th 1998 which would go on to peak at number 3 on the Billboard 200 and number 1 on the Top R&B albums. The group’s following album “We Are the Streets”, released on January 25th 2000, managed to reach number 5 in the Billboard 200 and number 2 in the R&B chart. It was produced by Timbaland and produced the singles “Wild Out” and “Recognize”.

The band would go on a hiatus that would end with a collaborative album with Wu-Tang Clan, which was released on November 27th 2012. The album was entitled “Wu Block”. They embarked on a worldwide concert tour called The Trinity. On March 1st 2014, the group released a song called “New York” which was endorsed by Funkmaster Flex.

The Philadelphia native Dwight E. Grant’s earliest hip-hop excursions came in 1994 when the rapper made appearances on a number of DJ Clue!’s mixtapes. Able to nurture an image and rising career for himself, Grant subsequently appeared on Jay-Z’s “Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life” and signed with Roc-a-Fella Records. Named after a street in South Philadelphia where Grant called home, Sigel’s debut album, “The Truth”, was released in 2000. Introducing Beanie Sigel’s smart, gritty, and hard-hitting rap delivery to a national audience, the record peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and featured the likes of Jay-Z, Eve, Memphis Bleek, and Kanye West on production. Earning a host of critical acclaim the album spawned the singles “Anything”, “Remember Them Days”, and “The Truth” and catapulted Sigel to rap notoriety.

A year later the rapper released his sophomore album “The Reason” this time with guest appearances from Daz Fillinger, Freeway, and Young Chris. Whilst not earning as favourable reviews as its predecessor the record peaked once again at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, after which Sigel starred in the Dame Dash-produced movie “State Property”. The film paved the way for the group State Property to form, who produced the film’s soundtrack in 2002 and subsequently “The Chain Gang Vol. 2” in 2003.

Despite the splintering of Damon Dash and Kareem Burke away from Roc-a-Fella, Sigel’s third full-length “The B. Coming”, released on Dame Dash Music Group, still featured a host of artists from the Roc-A-Fella roster including The Neptunes and Just Blaze. The record spawned the hit single “I Feel it in the Air” and generated a spread of rave reviews. Following a year’s prison sentence for a drugs and weapons possession charge, Sigel signed with Roc-A-Fella Record again and issued his fourth studio album “The Solution” in May 2007. Featuring guest appearances from Jay-Z, Ozzy Osbourne, R. Kelly and Ghostface Killah, the record was led by the single “All the Above” and charted at No. 37 on the Billboard 200.

Two years later the full-length “The Broad Street Bully” arrived marking Sigel's first independently released album. In 2010 he released the State Property collaborative album, “The Roc Boys”, alongside rapper Freeway, which hosts features from Wale, Young Chris and the Young Gunz. The rapper subsequently issued his sixth studio album “This Time” in 2012, following which he returned to prison for a two year sentence for tax evasion.

Singer-songwriter Adina Howard first came on the scene with the release of her debut album “Do You Wanna Ride?” in 1995. The platinum record propelled Howard to national stardom aided by the hugely popular single “Freak Like Me”. The heavily sexualised and provocative studio album peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 aided by “Freak Like Me” and the subsequent singles “My Up and Down” and “It’s All About You”. Following the release Howard collaborated with Warren G to produce the single “What’s Love Got to Do with It” for the “Police Story 3: Super Cop” soundtrack, followed by a contribution to the “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate” soundtrack.

The singer’s sophomore album “Welcome to Fantasy Island” was led by the single “(Freak) And U Know It”, however was shelved by Elektra Records in 1997. A few years later the album was leaked onto the internet, and the track “T-Shirt & Panties” (featuring Jamie Foxx) found its way on the 1998 film “Woo” soundtrack and later released as a single. Howard subsequently released the studio album “The Second Coming” in 2004 after moving to Rufftown Records, led by the single “Nasty Grind”. The album didn’t sell well however, and plans to release a second single were dropped after Howard left the label shortly after the release.

An official mixtape “Let You Hit” followed in 2005 with a host of new songs, remixes and unreleased tracks. The full-length “Private Show” arrived in 2007 led by the singles “L.O.V.A”, “My Hips”, and “Tease”. Following the release the singer took a hiatus from music in which time she started her own restaurant and released her own cook book. Howard returned to music in 2015 with the release of her full-length “The Switch Up” led by the singles “Switch” and “Bad 4 Me”.

There’s no question that Sisqo’s commercial peak came back in the nineties, initially through his success with the boy band Dru Hill; as their lead singer, he led them to three platinum-selling albums, 1996’s ‘Dru Hill’, 1998’s ‘Enter the Dru’ and 2002’s ‘Dru World Order’. Given the fickle nature of the audience for pop groups like Dru Hill, their longevity of appeal was impressive, but it was also obvious right from the start that Sisqo, in fronting the group, was destined to become its breakout star. Sure enough, his biggest hit came in the form of his risque 1999 smash ‘Thong Song’, which reached number three on the singles rundown on both sides of the Atlantic and helped to propel his debut solo album, ‘Unleash the Dragon’, to platinum selling status. Two years later, he earned the fourth of five career platinum discs to date when his second record, ‘Return of Dragon’, hit that sales certification, too.

Through the noughties, Sisqo’s commercial appeal began to wane, but he successfully toured across the U.S. and Europe with his Dru Hill bandmates, appeared widely on reality television - including Celebrity Big Brother in the UK - and brought out a third solo album, ominously titled ‘Last Dragon’, in January 2015.

Before Charlene Keys assumed the moniker Tweet in the early '90s, she had sung in her local church alongside her parents and four siblings. Inspired by the powerful diva images and sounds of Janet Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Tuna Turner and Whitney Houston, the singer enrolled at Rochester’s School of the Arts to pursue a career in music. After graduating, Tweet became one third of the female R&B trio Sugah alongside Susan Weems and Rolita White. The group was also a part of Devante Swing’s Swing Mob collective, which is where the singer became affiliated with rapper and producer Timbaland and “guardian angel” Missy Elliott, among others.

Towards the tail-end of the ‘90s with Sugah’s prospects not looking too promising, Tweet left the group and fell into somewhat of a slump. This however lasted until a phone call from Missy Elliott who invited Tweet to contribute backing vocals on her upcoming album “Miss E… So Addictive”, providing the singer with a glimmer of hope. Following her contribution to five of the albums' tracks, the singer met up with Timbaland, Magoo, Playa, and Ginuwine, later recording vocals on Timbaland and Magoo’s “Welcome to Our World” and Timbaland’s solo effort “Tim’s Bio: Life from da Basement".

Tweets debut album “Southern Hummingbird” was released in April 2002, led by the single “Oops (Oh My)” featuring Missy Elliott. The single peaked at No. 3 in the U.S and No. 5 in the UK, and was proceeded by the singles “Call Me” and “Boogie 2nite”. After years of nearly earning a breakthrough, Tweet became a recognised singer in her own right, later appearing on the albums of Karen Clark Sheard, Ms. Jade, Whitney Houston, and Meshell Ndegeocello.

The singer’s sophomore album “It’s Me Again” arrived in 2005 largely produced by Missy Elliott. The record was led by the singles “Turn da Lights Off”, "When I Need a Man” and “Cab Ride”, following which Tweet signed with Matthew Knowles of the management company Music World. After a significant hiatus, Tweet released the five-track EP “Simply Tweet” in 2013, and marked the first of the singer's releases not to feature Missy Elliott in any form.