When New Edition returns to Roxbury this weekend, the neighborhood will look a little different than when the group first formed in the Orchard Park projects more than 40 years ago. But what hasn’t changed for the performers is their love for the community that inspired them.
Boston will honor members Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Bobby Brown, Ronnie DeVoe, Johnny Gill, and Ralph Tresvant on Saturday, as Mayor Michelle Wu declares Aug. 30 New Edition Day. As part of the city’s For the Culture Week, the festivities will include a block party, as well the renaming of Dearborn Street as “New Edition Way.”
“We’ve done things that not many kids that come from where we come from get a chance to do,” Brown told the Globe in a recent Zoom interview. “And we’re just grateful that the mayor, Michelle Wu, put aside this day and put aside this weekend to give us our flowers.”
“It could have been New Edition Street, it could have been New Edition Lane, but at the end of the day, we’ve done this the New Edition way,” said DeVoe, “and we’re continuing to do it.”
For the members of New Edition, “Orchard Park will always be Orchard Park,” according to Bivins, although it was transformed in the late ’90s into the Orchard Gardens public housing development. While the special day and street dedication are a celebration of New Edition’s legacy, the festivities are also a way for the group to honor the people from Roxbury who made a difference in their lives growing up. Brown credited Bill Marshall, then a director of an Orchard Park recreation center, for pushing him to pursue his dreams, “whether it be sports, whether it be entertainment.”
“He was just a big inspiration to me,” said Brown. “He was a father figure of most of the kids in the neighborhood. He was just a good cat.”
Bivins echoed Brown’s praise of Marshall, noting how the director would do everything from referee basketball games to serve food at the center. The space played a pivotal role in the group’s upbringing and the lives of many residents in the neighborhood.
“After school, we would go in there, Bob would do boxing, some of us would go do basketball,” said Bivins. “But by six o’clock, if you were still in the gym, you could go into another room and get a real meal. … And sometimes that one dinner might have been somebody’s dinner at home they didn’t get.”
Bivins later added, “That gym is like the golden nugget” to fully understanding the New Edition story.
Bivins noted that the soon-to-be christened New Edition Way will “run across in front of Bobby’s building,” since he used to live the closest to the gym. The Orchard Gardens Boys & Girls Club, which will host this weekend’s block party, is now located on the street. The festivities begin and 11 a.m. and will include a backpack giveaway for kids, plus free food and activities.
“The block party that we’re doing on Saturday after our street naming is just as important as the street naming,” said DeVoe. “It’s New Edition being able to give back and to pay it forward and to do all of the things that I think we’re ultimately blessed to do.”
In addition to Marshall and the center, Brown pointed to the “many talent shows” hosted in the neighborhood back then, “where the kids had something to do on the weekends.”
“I would join any and every talent show trying to be successful as an entertainer,” said Brown. “I was a big Michael Jackson fan. I was a big Prince fan.”
The group started out as Bivins, Bell, and Brown, with Tresvant joining soon after. Longtime manager and choreographer Brooke Payne (DeVoe’s uncle) would also help them work on their moves.
A Hollywood Talent Night showcase hosted by producer-songwriter Maurice Starr at the Strand Theatre in 1981 would lead to the group’s big break. According to Boston Magazine, a recording contract was on the line for the winner, with New Edition coming in second place after singing a medley of Jackson 5 tunes. However, they impressed Starr so much that he signed the group anyway. DeVoe joined as they recorded their first hit song, “Candy Girl,” and their debut album of the same name.
“The Strand Theatre is still monumental to us,” said Brown. “It’s still the place that gave us that start. And Maurice Starr … kudos to him. We didn’t even win the competition, but we were able to go into the studio the next day and record.”
The song would reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in May 1983, edging out Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” The group would go on to grow up in tandem with their musical prowess, as they dropped other hits like “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Jealous Girl,” and established their signature new jack swing style.
Bivins said it was the group’s embrace of hip-hop, even in the early years, as well as their dance skills, that helped them stand out against the pop and R&B acts of the early ’80s.
“That’s a part of New Edition’s legacy as well, the fact that we were rapping on the first song, we were rapping on the first album,” said Bivins. “And then the guys in the group were good pop lockers. Naturally, they could go do street battles and do all that.”
“So, New Edition was like the perfect group. Maurice Starr was like the perfect situation,” he added. “And ‘Candy Girl,’ with Ralph launching it, à la Michael Jackson, was the perfect record.”
Like their old neighborhood, New Edition has evolved over the years, later adding Gill, from Washington, D.C., as a member in 1987 after Brown’s departure in 1985. Brown and other members would go on to establish acclaimed careers outside of the group, with Bell, Bivins, and DeVoe notably spinning off into their own eponymous trio, Bell Biv DeVoe, among other projects.
Brown explained that it’s their deep bonds — formed all the way back in Orchard Park — that have kept them connected throughout all the ups and downs.
“We have a kinship that is just amazing,” said Brown. “It’s the brotherhood that keeps the glue together.”
Back performing together in recent years, the group has been noticeably active, particularly in the wake of the successful 2017 BET miniseries “The New Edition Story,” which set a network record by drawing in more than 29 million unique viewers. New Edition also earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017, was inducted into the Black Music Hall of Fame in 2022, and honored by the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2023. The group recently had a Las Vegas residency at the Wynn’s Encore Theater as well.
New Edition appreciates the accolades and attention they’ve received in recent years, but they aren’t done building New Edition’s legacy. Noting the lack of Emmy nods for the BET series and the group’s lone Grammy nomination, Bivins admitted that they have a little bit of a chip on their shoulders.
“We still don’t own a Grammy … and we still have aspirations of being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to put that under our legacy,” said Bivins. “But I think Saturday will be a defining moment, something that’s going to create itself.”
But awards can’t compare with the knowledge that their fans have been the most vocal about celebrating the group’s impact on music and the city.
“Sometimes, celebrities do things because they have a movie coming out, an album coming out,” said Bivins. “But it’s good that when you do something and the regular folks say, ‘It’s about time.’ That’s probably one of the most powerful lines you could ever hear as an artist.”
The weekend will also provide the members an opportunity to teach their children and families about “where they come from, where their fathers have evolved from,” said Brown. “It’s gonna be a beautiful situation.”
And while New Edition has come a long way from Orchard Park, Bivins is “just thankful for the things that we have been given,” he said, and the fact that Boston still has as much love for them as they do for their hometown.
“We are a very special group,“ Bivins said. “And honestly, in closing, I’m happy that our Irish city has realized what’s been going on in the hood for 43 years.”
Matt Juul can be reached at matthew.juul@globe.com.