The Boys Will Be Boys : Northridge brothers debut with a hit album for Motown

By DENNIS HUNT

Feb. 26, 1989 12 AM PT

“Come out from under the table!,” yelled Khiry Abdul-Samad to his brother Hakeem, who had slid under to indulge in a giggling fit.

“He’s 13 but sometimes you’d think he was 2,” cracked Khiry, showing big-brotherly impatience, though just two years older.

He’s the eldest of the Boys, the Motown R&B; vocal quartet made up of four Abdul-Samad brothers, the other two being Tajh, 12, and Bilal, 9. With a Top 20 single, “Dial My Heart,” from their big hit debut album, “Messages From the Boys,” they could do for Motown what the Jackson Five did in the early ‘70s.

Just Hakeem and Khiry were in the conference room at Motown’s Hollywood headquarters that afternoon. Hakeem, giggling nonstop, had found something amusing.

“He gets that way sometimes,” Khiry noted, matter-of-factly. “I swear that boy is crazy.”

Hakeem finally came out.

Meanwhile, Khiry carried on with the interview, lamenting the ravages of puberty. His voice, once high like his three brothers’, changed--unfortunately for him during the recording sessions for this album.

“Disaster struck when I was 13,” he said. “My voice changed and I couldn’t sing the songs I was scheduled to sing. My voice was sky-high, like Hakeem’s. I had a lot of potential. Then boom! My voice went down. My range got shorter and shorter.”

By then, Hakeem, who’s a bit undersized for his age, was sitting up again. “My voice is still high,” he said, gloating somewhat. “I can sing what he can’t.”

Khiry wanted to sing “Lucky Charm” and “A Little Romance,” two songs written by L.A. and Babyface--currently the top R&B; composers in the business. “Those were the best songs,” he said. “I was jealous of Hakeem. His voice was high enough to sing them.”

But the songwriters came through with another song suited to his new range. “They wrote ‘Dial My Heart,’ which was right for me,” Khiry said. “But my voice is still too deep for a lot of stuff. I don’t like that part of growing up.”

Democracy reigns in this group. The lead-singing duties are divided to prevent one brother from becoming a bigger star than the others.

“We switch leads to keep the jealousy under control,” Khiry said. “Everybody wants to sing. If one of us did most of the singing, the others wouldn’t like it. If we didn’t compromise, things would be a mess.”

The Boys really sing like boys-- little boys. They struggle to stay on key and don’t have great range. None have vocal talent reminiscent of Michael Jackson when he was a pre-pubescent idol with the Jackson Five.

The Boys’ songs are well-produced and propelled by strong, danceable rhythms, offering simple, romantic messages that apparently set young girls swooning. But the beat and catchy melodies attract older teens too.

The Boys are where New Edition--now grown up and appealing to older audiences--was a few years ago. There’s a remarkable similarity in the sounds. Both groups, of course, mirror the Jackson Five.

The Boys’ fans, mainly girls 8 to 15, don’t really care about sleek vocals. A few flat notes and a little raggedness here and there won’t turn them off. What they mostly care about is that the Boys are young and cute.

“They try to rip our clothes off when we do shows,” Hakeem said. “They’d like to take us home, I guess.”

The Boys--who perform to taped accompaniment but are about to start working with a band--really get the fans worked up with acrobatic dance routines. Sometimes, the ecstatic fans go too far.

Recalling an incident at a Dallas record store, Khiry said: “About 2,000 kids showed up at this store. They nearly wrecked it. They messed up the limo too, writing phone numbers on it.”

Hakeem told of another harrowing experience at a Hawthorne mall.

“They expected 500 people and thousands showed up. We had to stop the show because the crowd got out of hand. It was scary. I get afraid of getting hurt. The fans don’t mean any harm, but it can get dangerous.”

What about being idolized by girls?

“It’s OK,” Hakeem replied. “I’ll probably enjoy it more when I’m older.”

Khiry noted: “It’s different for me having girls chasing me. I’m used to being rejected. That’s what happened in school before we became known. They like me now that I’m a celebrity. I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Oh no, not that!” Hakeem said, turning up his nose to the dreaded, inevitable question about how the group originated. Claiming that he had to go to the bathroom, he ran out of the room, leaving the dirty work to Khiry.

The brothers, born in Compton, reared in Carson and now residents of Northridge, got started a few years ago, dancing and lip-synching to New Edition records at Venice Beach for donations. Originally they did it to raise money to take their father to dinner but were so successful that they kept at it, making lots of money and setting their sights on a show-biz career.

With their parents’ support, they did some TV acting but concentrated on singing--making a demonstration tape that got them a record deal at MCA. When Jheryl Busby, the executive who signed them, took over Motown, he took the Boys with him.

Hakeem peeked in: “Are you done with that question?”

“Yeah, it’s safe to come back,” Khiry replied.

Hakeem ran back to his chair.

“I told you he was crazy,” Khiry dead-panned.