The Boys Transformed

Beginnings
The Boys an R&B quartet of the late 80's and early 90's who roused up a lot of young girls and then like a cloud of smoke vanished.

Brothers Khiry, Hakim, Tajh, and Bilal Abdulsamad started as an idea to raise money. After making a large amount of money in tips performing at Venice Beach they decided they wanted to take the group further and become a recording group. Their parents being supportive and wanting to help, decided to enroll in Entertainment Management Class at a local trade school in Los Angeles. The brothers hit the private party circuit in Beverly Hills, performing at birthday parties for kids such as Rod Stewart's son. Creating a buzz for themselves their father sent demos to MCA, Motown, and Solar Records. Wanted by all three labels they went with Motown and later became the youngest producers on the label. It is said that their mother gave them the name, after announcing them as "The Boys."

Motown
Their first album Messages from the Boys had the Baby Face and L.A. Reid produced hits "Dial my Heart" and "Lucky Charm" which both went to number one on the R&B charts. The second album self -titled The Boys spawned the hit "Crazy", which also made it to number one on the R&B charts. The album was produced by The Boys and was their last commercially significant recording. The third album released from The Boys on Motown was "The Saga Continues..." but unfortunately it didn't for them. It appeared as if Motown dropped them, but they actually left Motown and a six year deal. According to allmusic.com they felt that Motown ignored the self produced album, "The Saga Continues..."

It could have been the lack of efforts from Jheryl Busby, the head of Motown at the time, but it seems strange that the group only rose to what could be seen as mediocre fame status, meaning although they were big at the time they could have been bigger. They appeared in Michael Jackson's Moonwalk video, in a spoof of the video "Bad" called "Badder" as kids portraying dancers and Michael Jackson oppose to adults; Khiry was portraying the Wesley Snipes character from the original short film music video. Their single "Crazy" was featured in a Pepsi commercial. They toured with another 80's heartthrob group, New Kids on the Block and were doing back flips on stage before Omarion of B2K was Omarion of B2K. They also appeared in guest starring roles on T.V. shows such as ADifferent World. The labels argument was that their parents who were managing them at the time were inexperienced, but the parents continued as managers. The Boys also produced their own music opposed to having producers like Baby Face and L.A. Reid produce them who later became super producers making hits for TLC and Brandy. Regardless The Boys always played to the beat of their own drum and they simply walked away from the music industry.

The Suns of Light
The Boys walked away from fame and the music industry and set off on a path of enlightenment. According to their album notes on cdbaby.com they began meditating and after self transformation, became The Suns. To the naked eye, it simply looks like they moved to Africa and became all Nat-tree-al. They moved to Gambia a country on the West Coast of Africa and set up a recording studio creating a new sound that is a fusion of hip hop, soul, reggae, and West African music. Locals of Gambia still remember them from their childhood career and call them "crazy boys." According to allmusic.com now the oldest Khiry lives in Los Angeles and works in film and video production, Tajh lives in Atlanta, GA. Hakim and Bilal have dual citizenship in the United States, living in Gambia. They continue to record music as The Suns, which is available as MP3s on cdbaby.com of there website, www.vibeout.tv. Hakim has also wrote and produced "Mama Africa" which was on Akon's album "Konvicted" and he was a producer on The New Kids on the Block's 2008 release, "The Block".

Looking back at their career and sound, they really were ahead of their time and almost genius not only on the musical aspects, but also on the music industry aspects. Opposed to selling their souls to the music industry they stayed independent and stuck to who they were instead of rising to the top under the false identity from a record label only to crash and burn falling to the bottom like so many before and after them.