R&B Bridgez: Celebrating 35th Anniversary of TROOP

Today, UB Celebrates an R&B group, often overlooked who had a major impact in the industry, during the New Jack Swing era.

This year the group TROOP is celebrating their 35th Anniversary, as their debut self-titled album was released in the Summer of 1988. TROOP is an acronym for “Total Respect Of Other People.”

The group had the whole package, singers who could actually sing and harmonize, on top of dancing and hitting top chorography in their videos, not to mention Steven and Allen were beasts with their pen games. Writing and producing some of the groups biggest hits.

Originally named Five Of A Kind, TROOP scored seven Top 10 hits, including three #1‘s. The songs include their debut “Mamacita,” and the #1s “Spread My Wings,” “Sweet November” and the classic “All I Do Is Think of You,” which was certified platinum.

Composed of leaders Rodney Benford and Reggie Warren, lead vocalists Steven Russell and Allen McNeil, and back-up vocalist John Harrold.

In 1984 Rodney and Reggie, both 14 years old at the time, conceived of the idea of a group, it was their intention to come up with a unit that would feature dazzling footwork and equally strong vocals. It took a lot of auditions and much deliberation before they found three other singers and dancers, as Rodney put it “who were serious enough.”

Allen never suffered through that kind of dilemma. “I always wanted to sing,” Allen stated to an industry trade in 1988; “My father used to sing back when he was in high school, but he never wanted me to go that way. But he’s into it now, he called me up all excited and said, ‘I heard your record on the radio!’ My mom’s so into it that she bought eleven copies of the 45. They were both afraid for me; now they’re happy.”

As teens growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, TROOP developed a reputation through several talent shows as smooth vocals with hot dance steps combining traditional song styling with a hip-hop attitude. They came to wider attention after winning on the “Puttin’ On The Hits” TV talent show series. They won by dancing and lip-synching to New Edition‘s “Cool It Now.”

TROOP soon landed a record deal with Atlantic Records and put themselves through endless rehearsals. The group masterminded its own choreography, stated Reggie, “We love to dance. We create all our dance moves for the show. We want to give the people what they want; what they like.” Steven chimed in, “We were influenced by New Edition, more so than by rap groups, but we’ve got a look, style and choreography that is totally different.”

UB spoke to Steven in 2014 and he shared how TROOP got started; “We’re all from Pasadena, California and once we put the group together we went on a show called ‘Puttin’ On The Hits.’ We performed New Edition and that’s how the group got discovered. So once we put all of the members together, we signed with a production company that introduced us to Atlantic and that’s how we auditioned for them and got signed in 1986.”

The producers who contributed to TROOP’s self-titled debut included Brownmark (Prince Protégé), Chuckii Booker, Gerald LeVert, Wayne Vaughn, Dennis Nelson, the team of Zack Harmon and Clif Wright, and Attala Zane Giles. The entire album, took eight months to complete.

Steven Russell stated, “We came up with ideas with Zane by dishing stories in the studio. With him, we just knocked it out. Brownmark makes you work; those were our hardest sessions because he’s really a perfectionist. Gerald and Eddie LeVert, and Marc Gordon, working with them was a challenge. But they were nice, they treated us like family.”

On June 7th, 1988 “TROOP” was released, the album reached #19 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart.

TROOP‘s first single “Mamacita” was a hit out the gate, peaking at #2 on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart. The follow-up “My Heart” reached #9, while the final single release “Still in Love” peaked at #19.

After the release of their debut album, in late 1989 TROOP released their classic no-skips album “Attitude,” which featured two #1 R&B singles; including the Chuckii Booker collaboration “Spread My Wings.” “Attitude” was certified platinum in 1990.

“The first album, ‘TROOP,’ was aimed toward the Black market to let everybody know TROOP was here,” Allen stated to Billboard in 1989. “When the new album came out, we knew what songs we wanted, what sound we wanted and how far we wanted to push the record. That’s TROOP’s new Attitude. We’ve been in the business for two years now and we’re not naïve anymore, and we’re here to stay – we’re not here today and gone tomorrow!”

Steven added, “I had a keg of input with this whole album! Everything on this album is totally what I wanted to do on a personal basis. I got everything I wanted and working with Chuckii (Booker) was the best. He’s so good you can’t say enough about him. He listens to our suggestions and knows what’s good.”

The lead single “I’m Not Soupped” reached #19 on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles. “We had released “I’m Not Soupped,” but it wasn’t until Arsenio Hall (performance below) had us on the show that people understood that “soupped” meant conceited,” stated Allen.

The second single “Spread My Wings” topped Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart for two weeks, staying on the chart for 21 weeks. Followed by “All I Do is Think of You,” a Jacksons 5 remake. The song hit the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was their second #1, on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart, staying on the chart for 19 weeks.

Two more songs were released from “Attitude,” the title cut which reached the Top 20 on the R&B charts and the radio only release of “I Will Always Love You.”

During those years TROOP not only showcased their skills on The Arsenio Hall Show, but also the Late Show with David Letterman, Soul Train, Showtime at the Apollo, and they appeared in the feature film “New Jack City” singing a cappella.

The group appeared on the “New Jack City” soundtrack as well, with Queen Latifah and LeVert, on a medley featuring cover versions of The O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” and Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City.”

“Deepa,” released in 1992, was a creative step forward. The album, according to Rodney, was produced during an 18-month period in which the group was embroiled in a legal battle with its former managers. “We were doing this album during the time we were in and out of court. By the time we were through in court, we had a complete album.” TROOP then moved to Bust-It Management, who at the time managed multi-platinum rapper Hammer.

Coincidental with the management change was TROOP‘s decision to co-write and co-produce much of the music on “Deepa.” Twelve of the 15 songs were co-written and co-produced by Steven Russell and Allen McNeil. “Steven and Allen did most of the songwriting and production, but we all contributed,” stated Rodney to an industry trade in 1992. “Sometimes Steven would be working in the studio and call one of us up and say, I need some help with the melody or on this lyric. It didn’t make sense for all of us to be listed as the songwriters if we just contributed a line or something. But it was definitely a group project.”

The lead single “Whatever It Takes (To Make You Stay)” hit the Top 10 R&B charts, but it was the follow-up single, a remake of the Deele’s “Sweet November,” that gave TROOP their third #1 R&B single. UB spoke to Steven in 2009 and asked him how that remake came about; “Well I’ve always been really good friends with Babyface and L.A. Reid for so long. I actually got with them before recording the song. I would get their advice on what song we should do. Because there were two songs, the other was “I’ll Send You Roses.” It was between those two and Kenny thought we should do “Sweet November” and L.A. Reid thought we should do “I’ll Send You Roses.” I use to listen to “Sweet November,” that use to put me to sleep back in high school. So we ended up recording it and it was a #1 record! Yeah Babyface actually did the remix with me, the video version. Yeah Babyface produced it.”

The final single released from “Deepa,” was the Steven Russell penned “Give It Up.”

In 1994, the group subsequently went independent with the release of their fourth album “A Lil’ Sumpin’ Sumpin.’” The album was released under rapper Hammer‘s Bust It label.

Only Steven and Allen of the group recorded it with Demetrius Shipp as a trio. Demetrius Shipp is best known for portraying Tupac Shakur in the 2021 motion picture “All Eyez on Me.”

TROOP‘s next album “Mayday” came in 1998 with all original members, which featured the fan-favorite “Over The Moon.”

Their self learned knowledge of the business led them to form Acts Entertainment and enter a joint venture with L.A.’s Warrior Records. “Independent labels are bringing all the heat right now,” stated Steven in 1998. “We’re the creators. There’s no way we should have to spend 20 years in this industry and then still have to go out and perform to make money when you’re creating your own music. We all need to get more into ownership.”

TROOP took a hiatus as individual members worked behind the scenes on various writing and producing projects, collaborations, and other business endeavors.

TROOP went inactive for several years but occasionally recorded and toured. In 2013, they released a single titled “Forever.” Within the music industry, Steven had the most success outside the group as part of the songwriting and production team the Underdogs.

Steven Russell wrote “Take You Down” for Chris Brown and “No Air” for Jordin Sparks, Grammy award winning “Invisible Invisible” for Jennifer Hudson and a long list of others, including the B2K classic “Gots Ta Be.” In 2010 he released his debut solo CD entitled, “So Random” which was the first release from his own label Motel Music Media.

Allen McNeil released his debut solo album titled “Hybernation” in January 2010. Allen McNeil released his sophomore solo album titled “Send For Me” in November 2011, followed by the album “Quarantined.”

In 2014, John “Jon Jon” Harreld released a single covering Luther Vandross’s “Never Too Much.” That same year TV One honored the group, with an episode of “Unsung.”

In May of 2021, Reggie Warren, passed away at his California home. He was 52, Steven Russell mourned his death on Instagram, saying, “Job well done my brother I will see you on the other side.”

Last year the documentary “Tales of a Boy Band – The Story of TROOP” premiered on Tubi. It’s the real story of what happened, behind the scenes. The documentary talks about the turmoil that went on in the group, as well Steven and Allen speaking on the differences they had with each other from the jump. Narrated by each group member, including Reggie Warren before his passing. Every TROOP fan needs to check out the 5-part series.

In recent years, the group has released multiple compilation albums. This year TROOP released two new singles “So In Love” and a remake of Michael Jackson‘s classic “Lady In My Life,” with a visual you can watch below.

TROOP continues to tour!

Take A Trip Down Memory Lane with TROOP!

———

=