A Chat with 2BYG
Nostalgia moves with the times and right now the 90s is riding the wave of misty eyed good feeling with TV shows, computer games, fashion and, of course, music. All of it is being revisited and reinterpreted by a new audience. Enter 2BYG, a group of four 20-year-olds from Fort Worth, Dallas who have been billed as the next big R&B group. They blend the ‘richness of 90s soul while carrying a modern edge.’ Starting off as a trio straight out of High School, Matt Brown, Tourè and Nixx were joined by KD in 2022. They have earned over a million followers on TikTok with their covers of artists such as Mariah Carey and Jodeci. It’s understandable that comparisons have been drawn between 2BYG and groups such as Boyz II Men and Backstreet and that is a lot for a new young band to live up to.
Matt Brown: “[Being a boy band today is] great, but at the same time, sometimes you kinda feel that pressure because [...] we got to live up to Boyz II Men, to 112, New Edition and the whole thang.”
KD: “Another thing, [...] even though we are up-and-coming, we are here, but kinda just in the beginning stages, we already have to be great. We already have to be at that level and then take that somewhere and that’s where the pressure, at least for me, that’s where it comes in. Oh, it’s not even about your growth, it’s not about following you on your journey, it’s about, when I see you, are you captivating enough already. That’s a big thing and that really bleeds into other areas, other conversations.”
However, the boys are clear that they are not just a tribute to a previous era and that they are bringing a different twist to a classic sound.
KD": “I feel like [we are] adding the youth, you know, the sound of today, you know, it’s not exactly as it was. We are tapping in the nostalgia but not depending heavily on it. I feel like adding that sound and mixing it and blending it with what we know growing up versus what we have heard now, today, is what separates us.”
And is not just the 90’s that the band draw on - anyone and anything could, and is, ripe for musical plucking.
Matt Brown: “So we studied the greats. Michael [Jackson] said ‘study the greats and you will become greater’. All the greats that we study have never really been in one box. From Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, Stevie Wonder and just everybody nowadays. So, we wanna do it all from country, jazz, classical music, R&B, pop, swing, rock’n roll, rap music [...] we wanna do it all because, in school, you could not put any of us in a box.”
Tourè: “I feel like even with that mindset, us having these creative minds, being in the industry, you have to learn, like, there’s a way you have to go about that, you know, like, if it was up to us we would probably put out three albums in a month, literally, and they’d all be different genres because we have so much in our minds, so much that we wanna put out. But you gotta take your time.”
Nixx: “We got this saying ‘history creates the future’ so, you know, everything from the past, we just kinda take that and just put it in everything now.”
As you might expect for a band named after the Nina Simone lyric “To be young, gifted and black,” confidence in themselves and their music does not run low in the group.
KD: “I would say one of our biggest goals is to really take over the music industry as a whole, not just in one genre but, you know, in music. We all play instruments, we all are creative and we were born in a generation where we had access to every different genre. So that’s like, this is probably one of the first generations where that’s been able to access music in Japan or music in Korea. Being able to absorb all of that and give that back is something that we are actually capable of doing and that’s going to be really cool to see that coming to fruition.”
Matt Brown: “We would love to do a world tour. We read our comments all the time, engage with the fans and we have fans in South Africa, Brazil, Madagascar, the list goes on.”
KD: “I think our top three [...] was South Korea, Tokyo and New York I think were the top three places where it was the most played. A lot of different people from different places really loving the music, loving what we are doing so yeah, we would love to do that as soon as possible.”
At the same time they are clear that they still have a way to go before they are world domination ready.
KD: “I put it like this - we want the story of 2BYG to be like a story of growth. [Our favourite song] is the next one, the next one, it’s always the next one because we love the music that we put out but we haven’t really tapped into where we know it’s going to go. So it’s hard to, like, articulate where you want to go when you haven’t necessarily heard it yet. It’s coming, but it’s hard to say. If I had to generalize it, I would say [...] we really want the soul and the feeling from before to be brought back.
So, you know, so that people have something to attach themselves to that make them feel good and distract them from whatever's going on in the world, all the problems that are going on in the world and your personal life - that’s the goal of the music and that’s where we want the trajectory to go.”
Matt Brown: “Facts. [...] ‘Cause when you think about the generations it’s all about the music that they were listening to and the movies that they were watching so there’s a lot of crazy music out there right now and we would love to influence love. We always sing this song called Love’s in Need of Love so we just want to bring real love back music in any way, shape or form for all of our followers.”
Tourè: “Something else I would say to add on to that, I feel like us, as artists - and I read up on it the other day - we could just be the voice of people who don’t know how to articulate certain things. So if you love somebody, but you don’t really know how to say it, our music will just be something that you go to that’s really therapeutic for you that can help you articulate how you feel towards somebody or something.”
The theme of growth is not just limited to the group as whole but also extends to individual development. Although, as they explain, the two are intertwined:
Nixx: “I feel like when you are working on a solo project you are actually working on finding your inner self and working on your spirit so when you come back to the group - because the group is the home, it’s the baby - it’s like you are feeding the baby with what you have learnt.”
Tourè: “I can piggy back off of that - we a baseball team. He [Nixx] a shooter. When he goes to the gym and work on his shot. When I run dribble, I can pass it to my shooter, he gonna hit it every time ‘cause that’s his job. He just bringing something to the team. When you work on yourself, you working to bring something to the team.”
KD: “So just being in a group, like, it just brings self discovery. You know, when you realize the things that you have in common it also makes you wonder what is different and so going in and doing a little thing with your computer, whether that’s writing, whether that’s playing on instruments, that always makes it better, it always feeds the baby, like he said.”
Matt Brown: “You know, everybody got their own story, got their own super power [...] We all approach music in different ways. This thing may speak out to him in a different way that it may speak out to me so we need all of those elements to make this thing pop and it’s been popping so…
So we've been singing together now since sophomore in High School so, man, when we first got together we didn’t really have time to really sit down and do this all. We are in the bathroom trying to throw the harmony together in two minutes in passing period and, oh boy, it’s definitely been a process. It’s just like anything - the more you do it the better it gets. So we been doing this for damn near five years now. I mean, it’s a blessing ‘cause the more we learn about each other, along with learning the greats, we get it together, God blesses it and we give it to the people.”
Tourè: “And the more you invest in yourself, like I was saying before, the more you invest in your jump shot, the more your armies are going to get.”
Matt Brown: “Sometimes it’s like, oh man, like Michael Jackson said, ‘I hate to tour, but then you go to love to tour’ sometimes we don’t even feel like doing it but that’s when it counts the most and that’s when we find something that really edifies us and our army.”
The emphasis on love and self improvement runs through the conversation which is not unexpected in a group that is strongly rooted in the church. Although this might seem that spiritually is the antithesis of boy band life, Matt points out that a gospel background is not unusual in R&B music.
Matt Brown: “We all grew up in the church, in the church background, and when you think about those 90s groups or 80s, 70s groups, they all came from a gospel background so it's not as hard as some people may make it seem. Like you saying, we just trying to put our modern twist on it. Most people don’t even know that’s what it is. Like Jemaine, he had a video going viral basically saying today’s R&B artists are missing that gospel background. It’s quite easy for us again, because we all have grown up in church and been singing in gospel choirs since we were infants.”
Tourè: “‘Be Mine’ is a good example, I feel like, when it comes to the backgrounds, you can really hear the church soul in the backgrounds. I really don’t know how to articulate it but just when you feel it you feel it, when you know, you know. Clarke Sisters - that’s church, like you can’t really put that in a different category. I don’t really know how to explain it.”
KD: “The intricacies, I feel like, they all stem from gospel, they all stem from the church and it's almost like anything we do with harmonies is going to come from that, is an extension of that and Be Mine, as you say, is a great example of that feel, that church soul feel.”
Matt Brown: “Even going off of like, PJ Morgan, Maroon 5 [have a] gospel background twang to us, so it's something that you feel but at the same time it also has its science to it. We just bringing it back and it's dope.”
Nixx: “I got two words to say: foundational and fundamental.”
And it is not just their background in the church that has played a key role in the band’s development; they are also ferociously proud of their home town.
EM: How has the environment you grew up in influenced your sound?
KD: “I would say, the reason it is hard to answer that question is because, being exposed to so much music through our devices, it's like, yes of course we value our home town - there’s a lot of diversity [there]. Fort Worth is one of the biggest, or fastest growing, cities in the United States right now. So that being said, there’s, like, so many different cultures that we pull from, so many different sounds that we pull from to create, like, what we have. That’s why it’s ours/art.”
Matt Brown: “Back to the gospel thing, for Fort Worth right now our biggest person that you can think of for music is the, how many Grammys does he have? 13? 14? Kirk Franklin - he’s the biggest gospel artist ever so, you know, then it's kinda iffy because the Dallas, Fort Worth area, of course they mix their music. They have Erykah Badu, Kirk Franklin - they said ‘we all grew up with old school parents’ so, you know, we have our roots at home but then we have roots from other places, ‘cause Jonas is from where? Virginia. Dru Hill is from Baltimore so all those different places blend. But you definitely know Texans from the way we dress and talk.”
Tourè: “I just want to add to that was that I feel that our music will speak louder, or reach way more than just Fort Worth. You gotta think it will be universal.”
EM: Which brings us back to global reach, something that, in today’s music industry surely all groups are aiming for. But is it possible for today’s R&B artists to achieve the same kind of success that those of the past?
Tourè: “I feel like in our generation, a lot of people compare today’s R&B to the past R&B because we all know the 90’s - that’s the prime - right? That’s when R&B was the most consistent. I feel that that conversation has sparked just because of the consistency of R&B artists. So, if you look at the charts you probably get, like, 300 rap albums in one year and that’s just, like, from the people that’s popping in the rap community, vs R&B - it’s not that many who are really, like, consistent, for real. Like, you gonna get a Leon Thomas album once a year, you gonna get a Kehlani, who gonna get - who else at the top R&B? - Bruno. It’s been the same people and it’s not that consistent vs rap. So I feel like the R&B …I don’t think it’s lost - I think it’s levels of consistency and that’s what we will bring, it’s like a big gap of music that’s just, like, feeling and quality.”
KD: “That’s what I was gonna say. When it comes to those artists that continuously succeed, it’s because of the quality. There might be other things that are dropped but it doesn’t amount to the creativity and the quality that comes from those people that are consistently in that field.”
Tourè: “That’s where we are right now, really finding our world so we can just stay true to ourselves, like, nobody can do you better than you so as long as you stay true to yourself having longevity wouldn’t be that hard. I feel like when we see artists now, they’re at the top, they have always done something that really is them, like Drake for example , he stays true to his sound and what he does. That’s how he has longevity.”
That’s big talk from a group whose debut project, the nine-track EP The Yearbook, only dropped in November last year. Only time will tell if they achieve the same kind of longevity and success as the R&B artists of the past.