BLACKstreet BIOGRAPHY

BLACKstreet have been founded in 1992 by producer/songwriter Teddy Riley and Chauncey "Black" Hannibal, with Joe Stonestreet and Levi Little as additional members. They first appeared with 2 songs on the movie soundtrack to CB4. Joe Stonestreet sung lead vocals on the first BLACKstreet single "Baby Be Mine", but left the group before finishing their debut album. He has been replaced by Dave Hollister and so BLACKstreet was completed to release their self titled debut in 1994.
"BLACKstreet" included the hit singles "Booti Call", "Before I Let You Go", "Joy" (co-written by non other than Michael Jackson), "U Blow My Mind" and went platinum for over 1 million sold records.

Although it was uncertain if there will be a second BLACKstreet album, since Levi Little and Dave Hollister left the group "Another Level" has been released in 1996.
With new members Mark Middleton and Eric Williams (who Teddy already wanted for the first line-up) BLACKstreet really took their music on another level with moving from hip-hop beats dominated tracks to pure R&B. The first single "No Diggity" which featured Dr. Dre and Queen Pen blew up like a nuclear bomb. It went #1 in several countries and has been certified platinum. BLACKstreet also won a Grammy for "No Diggity". But "No Diggity" wasn't the only hit single on "Another Level". It had also singles like "Fix", "Don't Leave" or "Can't Get You (Out Of My Mind)" to make the album sell over 4 million copies and get certified multi platinum.

With the latest BLACKstreet album "Finally" the group had yet another change in the line-up. Mark Middleton left the group to start a solo career. For him Terrell Philips joined BLACKstreet.
For finalizing the 3rd BLACKstreet album Teddy Riley took a pretty unusual way. He made students and reporter listen to rough cuts of the songs and asked them for their honest opinion to see what people like and what not. Snippets of "Finally" has also been put online and the listeners has been asked in a survey which snippets they liked best. So far there are 2 singles taken (non of them released comercially) "Girlfriend/Boyfriend" (with Janet feat. Eve and Ja Rule) and "Think About You".