Good Times, Great Oldies: New Jack Swing Video Party
April 30th, 2009 | 4:20 pm est |
I was driving to work this morning and took a left turn instead of the usual right turn and next thing I knew, I was in New Jack City. The clouds scattered, my pulse quickened and videos were found. Suddenly the day became bearable as the jams rolled on and on. Take a listen to some of the best music ever made! No lie.
Bell Biv Devoe - “Poison”
This is the all-time jam of all-time! “Our music is mentally hip hop smoothed out on the R&B tip with a pop appeal to it.” Yeah, it is.
Bobby Brown - “Every Little Step”
Amazing song — classic video. His rap skills are um, weak, but when you’re rocking suspenders and cycling shorts with “BOBBY” written down the side who really cares if you have any flow. (Awesome extra bonus interview at the beginning.)
Guy - “Do Me Right”
This has just about everything you could possibly want in a video, from the headset mics and silly sunglasses to the fly girls and Heavy D cameo. Plus Teddy Riley! He’s the mayor of NJC. Thanks to the friendly folks at their label, only the link is available so go there now. Here’s another Guy jam to help ease the pain of non-embeddable video linkz: “Teddy’s Jam”
Boyz II Men - “Motownphilly”
These guys started off incredibly square and only got worse but this song kind of hits the sweet spot. Plus it has the greatest video moment of all time about 1:30 in when a door opens and there’s Biv dropping some knowledge while in the middle of his morning constitutional. Hilarious. (Also, look for a very young ?uestlove on drums.)
Can’t forget the New Jill Swing!
SWV - ‘Right Here”
Jade - “Don’t Walk Away”






The most distinctive New Jack Swing characteristic is that same synthesized snare drum used in every track in the genre. It just screams “It’s 1989!”
NJS is one of the best music ever, absolutely.
How could you forget After 7’s “Cant Stop” and Rude Boys “Written All Over Your Face”? Blapshemy, I say.
The 80s and 90s had the best music by far! I miss those days..
Where did you dig up these vintage videos from? What a blast from the past.
Great article! Brings back a lot of memories.
Bobby Brown was in his prime in this video. Too bad he threw it all away….