On the Forever My Lady album cover, Jodeci rocked a New York b-boy conservative look with skull caps, hoodies, combat boots and jackets.

Advertisement

Initially, Dalvin said, the label wanted the group to dress up in suits—sequined suits like Guy. Ki-C and JoJo were OK with the idea because they had worn suits as gospel singers.

“When Puff came around, he and I started going to clubs, and we said that’s going to be our image,” Dalvin said, referring to a more b-boy style. “Andre and them hated the idea. Puff had his ear to the streets, he knew what was hot, so we trusted him.”

Advertisement

“Puffy made Jodeci in his image,” Wrigiht remembered. “Uptown in general, we were image-makers, and the whole hybrid concept/idea, from new jack swing to hip-hop soul, was really something we took serious from a musical-genre standpoint. How do we build the image and lifestyle? We were deliberate about what these groups represented to the marketplace.”


Jodeci’s sophomore album, Diary of a Mad Band (with the help of singer-songwriter Al B. Sure as a producer), was a smash, debuting at No. 1 on the R&B Albums chart in its first week, and would eventually be certified multiplatinum.

Advertisement

At the time, Jodeci was in full rock-star mode. The title of the album was indicative of the drama that had ensued since the first album, including arrests, chronic lateness and Ki-C and Mary J. Blige’s rocky and abusive relationship.

“They were starting to piss people in the industry off,” Wright said. “They weren’t showing up to photo shoots, being disrespectful, late.”

“They went through so much drama and mischief between the first album and Diary of a Mad Band,” remembered Virgil Sims, who was vice president of marketing. “I think the title was part of their mischief.”

By their second album, they had moved from their Southern nice-ty (nice, but nasty) charm to explicit but still-tender jams. DeVante had declared them a black rock ’n’ roll band.

By this time, DeVante was producing for pop stars like Madonna and was in big demand. The production of Diary of a Mad Band happened in a studio in Rochester, N.Y., away from the distractions of the city. Precelebrity artists like Missy Elliott, Timbaland and Magoo, and Ginuwine stayed in a house in Rochester with them and spent their days in the studio.

Advertisement

The fame and the money from the success of their debut, however, was making them come unhinged—both the group and the people working with them. Strong personalities at the label clashed.

DeVante owned 21 cars. Deadlines were being missed. Money was getting lost. The album didn’t get delivered on time.

Advertisement

“Ki-C would be beating up Mary, DeVante would be getting drunk with JoJo. It was anarchy. It wasn’t organized confusion. It was just confusion,” said then-executive producer Tim Dawg.

In the midst of making the album, DeVante was robbed in his house.

“That was on my birthday,” Dalvin recalled. “We were recording ‘Alone’ when we got the call that my brother got robbed. We were heading to the studio. Somebody had tied him up and tried to kill him and rob his house. But we still kept going.”

Advertisement

“They had just come off a first hot album and tour, first little bit of money in their pocket, and they thought it was time to go rock ’n’ roll,” said Wright. “The album was a rebellion record at a time when their souls were aligned with rebellion.”

“I thought, ‘They are comfortable unwinding in public. Why not put that out there?’” Wright said about marketing their madness. “Let’s embrace it conceptually. Let’s get the popcorn ready.”

Advertisement

Wright’s epiphany was the beginning and also the beginning of the end.


The group embraced their bad-boy image, and audiences ate it up. But it wasn’t just an image; they were living the bad-boy lifestyle: Physical fights, arrests and drugs were par for the course. But it was the music that made audiences pause. Critics said that their sophomore album “transcended the formulaic histrionics that marred their debut.” Three singles—“Cry for You,” “Feenin’” and “What About Us”—would come to define the Jodeci sound and their image.

Advertisement

They were no longer broke kids on Puffy’s tight leash. The cover of the 1993 album illustrated their new rock-star status.

“We wanted not just for women to buy our records; we wanted to be the mouthpiece for men,” Dalvin said. “Hard-core niggas would play Jodeci and wouldn’t feel bad riding down the street pumping it. Girls would be like, they look hard, but they talking to us. That’s what we aimed for.”

Advertisement

Stylist and designer Sybil Pennix, who came on board for their second album, would be the one to embrace their inner rock ’n’ roll psyches.

“I was doing things people wouldn’t expect, like boots and shorts in the summer, leather in the desert,” Pennix said. “I pushed the fashion envelope. I was a rebel. Puffy didn’t want that. He thought it was stupid. I said, ‘No, that’s rock ’n’ roll.’”

Advertisement

For the Diary of a Mad Band cover, she dressed them in fishermen waders. On the cover, Dalvin and DeVante wore them with no shirts on, with brown 40 Below Timberland boots.

Advertisement

But the shoot that would help solidify their image as the bad boys of R&B almost didn’t happen. The shoot was set to begin at 8 a.m. in New York City’s Queens borough on an abandoned Metropolitan Transit Authority lot. Photographer Danny Hastings paid a security guard to make sure no one bothered them. This was the ’90s. No appointments. No permits from the city. Just [like] gangbusters. The location was dangerous and abandoned. “It had almost, like, an apocalyptic feel to it,” said Hastings. “I just loved that.”

Wright sent a limo for the group early in the morning. They didn’t show up until 2 p.m. Everybody was pissed.

Advertisement

“I ended up having to do the entire package in, like, 30 minutes to an hour,” said Hastings.

Still, the album was a huge success, but more than anything, Jodeci got love from the streets.

Advertisement

“There are street stars and people who sell a lot of albums,” Pennix said. “Street stars are actually bigger than people who sell a lot of albums. If you ask people across the world who was the biggest R&B group of that time period, they will remember and say Jodeci.”