Dru Hill: Baltimore's teen quartet razzles and dazzles with grown-up R&B style

Ebony, Feb, 1998 by Lynn Norment

Woody, who recently turned 20, says he sang his first solo in church when he was 3 years old. While his mother is Baptist, he also attended Holiness churches and has several ministers in the family. "Every Sunday I was singing in a different church," he says, adding that Dru Hill had a "powerful ministry" when they were singing gospel at age 15 and 16. He says his parents (his mother is a schoolteacher and his father works at a youth detention center) took him out of the group when they first started singing secular music, but be convinced them that regardless of what type of music he sings, he would never forget his Christian roots. His determination finally won them over.

"God has really blessed us," says Woody, who plays piano and contributes gospel-infused harmonies to Dru Hill's repertoire, and who still hopes to study criminal law at Coppin State College. "Last year we were doing the same thing and nobody knew who we were. Now we have long lines of people waiting outside our concerts to meet us. We don't see ourselves like that, like those big stars. We are shocked that we are so well-loved. Things like this only happen to ... Michael Jackson."

Jazz, who delivers spine-tingling falsetto riffs throughout the album, says that success feels good. "Everybody is always telling us how successfull we are, but we've been on the go since the beginning, and we haven't had a chance to sit back and take stock of all this."

A graduate of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, 19-year-old Jazz says he taught himself to play the drums when he was "around 7 or 8," and then the piano was followed by the bass and guitar. "I hope we can keep the hits coming," he says. "Our success grows each year."

Nokio, who is 18, attended Douglass High School with Jazz, and then transferred to Baltimore City Community College Prep School, where he was reunited with longtime friends Woody and Sisqo. He says with his grandparents he attended a Methodist church, where he sang in the choir and played trumpet at special programs. "We had a slamming choir," he recalls. Today, Nokio, who says his name is an acronym for "Nasty On Key In Octave, plays piano, keyboards and guitar, in addition to trumpet, and the soothing tenor considers himself a musician and producer more so than a singer He produced four of the album's songs penned by the group, and is now taking saxophone lessons.

The lesson that Dru Hill would like for other young people to learn from them is you can be whatever you want to be. "You can see in us that you can be yourself, succeed and be accepted," says Sisqo, who -- despite the skepticism of his mother -- dyed his hair blond four years ago in an effort to "express" himself. "Don't be afraid to be yourself. We didn't jump on the bandwagon. The way we look, the way we move, it's different from other groups. We have our own look, our own sound and our own style."

What they don't have at this time, the young crooners say, is time for a personal life and girlfriends. While they enjoy sports, video games and other X-generation pastimes, most of their free time is spent with their families and harmonizing, writing and producing music.