Former members of 80’s R&B group New Edition: Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill, and Ralph Tresvant have recently come together to go on tour as The Summit. According to Gill, their group name “The Summit” is inspired by the original name for the The Rat Pack called “The Summit” or “The Heads of State”.

One of the brightest R&B stars of the late ‘80s and early ’90s, Bobby Brown was the man who popularized new jack swing, a blend of classic soul, urban synth-funk, and hip-hop rhythms that often featured rap breaks in between the conventionally melodic verses and choruses. Don’t Be Cruel, released in the summer of 1988, produced Brown’s Number One single "My Prerogative,“ and from there the album kept spinning off hits: “Roni,” “Every Little Step”, and “Rock Wit’cha” all hit the Top Ten. Don’t Be Cruel sold a whopping seven million copies, making Brown a superstar, and thus making new jack swing the dominant trend in R&B through the early ’90s.

Johnny Gill ‘s solo career began in 1983 with the Top 30 R&B single “Super Love.” In duo with Stacy Lattisaw, he scored an R&B Top Ten hit in 1984 with “Perfect Combination.” In 1989 he sang on two R&B hits: “Where Do We Go from Here,” a #1 by Stacy Lattisaw, and “One Love,” by George Howard. Gill finally scored in 1990 with the release of his album Johnny Gill, which sold a million copies, topped the R&B chart, and made the Top Ten in the pop chart.

Ralph Tresvant sang lead on New Edition’s hits and had his own gold number one R&B hit with the silky “Sensitivity.” “Sensitivity” sold over a million copies, going to number one R&B and number four pop on Billboard’s charts in fall 1990. His solo debut Ralph Tresvant went platinum, parking at number one R&B for two weeks. The LP yielded such hits as “Stone Cold Gentleman,” “Do What I Gotta Do,” and “Rated X.”