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New Edition formed in Boston’s Orchard Park projects in Roxbury, where Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ronnie DeVoe and Ralph Tresvant took second place at a 1982 Hollywood Talent Night at the Strand Theater. Producer Maurice Starr recorded them the next day, and Candy Girl, released on Streetwise Records in 1983, topped the US R&B chart and the UK singles chart. After a national tour, each member received a check for $1.87, with Starr citing tour expenses. In 1984 the teenagers hired the Machat law firm, sued for release, and won.

At MCA they learned they were actually signed to a production company, Jump and Shoot, and each member borrowed $100,000 from MCA to buy out that deal. Albums like All for Love and the doo-wop covers set Under the Blue Moon kept money flowing, Bobby Brown left in 1985, and Johnny Gill joined in 1987 before Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced the double platinum Heartbreak in 1988. The breakup that followed produced Bell Biv DeVoe and solo hits, and the 1996 six-man reunion album Home Again debuted at number one.

• Maurice Starr took the same blueprint to a group of white Boston teenagers who became New Kids on the Block.
• On the Heartbreak tour, Bobby Brown opened for his former group while his album Don’t Be Cruel outsold them.
• Bell Biv DeVoe’s 1990 debut Poison went quadruple platinum the same year Tresvant and Gill released solo albums.
• In Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1997, Ronnie DeVoe tried to pull Bobby Brown offstage, a fight broke out, and the show was halted.
• The 2017 BET miniseries The New Edition Story drew 28.4 million viewers.