Full Force - Friends B-4 Lovers

What this video is

Released August 22, 1989 on Columbia/Legacy, 'Friends B-4 Lovers' represents Full Force at the cusp of the New Jack Swing era — a period when Brooklyn-rooted R&B acts were navigating between the freestyle/dance-pop sound they helped define with Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam and the harder rhythmic production emerging from Teddy Riley's innovations. Full Force — a six-man collective of singers, instrumentalists and producers…

Why it matters

A transitional artifact in the New Jack Swing-adjacent R&B canon, 'Friends B-4 Lovers' documents Full Force's pivot from high-energy freestyle production toward slower-tempo romantic R&B balladry — a genre shift that would define the early 1990s. The video is a primary source artifact for the…

The director

Brian George (b. March 6, 1959, Brooklyn, NY), known as B-Fine, is the drummer and drum programmer of Full Force, a Grammy Award-winning R&B/hip-hop production collective. He has earned Gold, Platinum, and Diamond record plaques for production work with…