Michael "Bass" McCary

     Michael was born on December 16, 1971. The tall, handsome, velvet voiced gentlemen is said to be so honest that it hurts. If you don't want to hear the truth, then you better not ask Mike. Brought up by a very loving and supporting mother made his life a little easier when he was younger "My family had to derive it's happiness from my mom and everything that she did to make us feel happy and secure."

    Not to say that Michael's childhood was not pleasant, but having only one parent supporting the family brought some un-surety to Mike as child "I would describe my childhood as happy, but it was definitely not relaxed. Since we were always struggling to make ends meet, it was very difficult to be relaxed." Also being raised in Logan, a high crime area, didn't help him to relax  "Logan's one of the biggest crime areas in Philly. It was kind of hard coming out everyday and going to different parts of the city to sing while all your friends are slingin' dope and doing all the things you were trying to stay away from."
 

    One memory that stand's out in Mikes mind is from his childhood. When a childish prank scared him for life, literally! If you look closely at a picture of Mike you will notice a small scar right between his eyes. You might think this was left from some traumatic event in his life, but in reality it was a violent mixture of Mashed Potatoes, Salisbury Steak and Gravy. "Many people wonder how I got the mark on my face. I was in Kinnerten Elementary School and one of my female cousins was playing around with me in the school yard. She shoved me and then ran into the school lunchroom. I got her back, though. I picked her up and put her in the trash. So, while I was sitting down eating my lunch, she threw her tray of food in my direction to get back at me, but the food scalded me. That explains the mark right between my eyes," he says. Michael remembers the day so clearly that he can even recall what the school was serving for lunch that day, "Lunch was Salisbury Steak with Gravy, Mashed Potatoes and Vegetables."

    When you think of Mike, most people would think of a popular guy who's calm, cool, and kinda laid back. But in high school Mike remembers being teased and called names. When he was attending the traditional high school and not the performing arts, he use to be made fun of for being a 'nerd,' "As a teenager, I tended to get laughed at in school because I was a nerd.  I was in honor roll society, and I did the debate team for about a year. When I was in traditional high school I always liked music. Some people laughed and teased me because I wanted to sing." When Michael changed schools, and went to the Performing Arts the teasing stopped and the support he needed to pursue his music career started. "When I got into the High School For Creative and Performing Arts, that kind of rude behavior stopped because everyone in that school was doing music and art related things."
 
    Believe it or not Michael's cane came about because Mike is a very, very clumsy person. In high school he would play a lot of sports and get injured quite a bit from falling and tripping. "In the early days I use to play a lot of ball, play basketball, I would mess up my ankles all of the time, I messed up my knee in high school."  He started using a walking stick, not to be cool, but to keep himself balanced. Surprisingly everyone took hold of the new trend and now you will never see him without it. "It became a fashion statement through the years because everybody said 'Look at that cool brother walking down the street with a cane, but I wasn't trying to be cool, I was trying to be careful."

    Michael looks forward to someday getting married and having a big family. Mike's looking for a girl who has a brain, someone who can hold her own in a verbal battle and also someone who has a big heart "I like a girl who's smarter than me, cause that's to be respected. I don't need anyone I have to guide at all times. If I'm with someone who's not really strong-minded and strong-tempered and strong-willed, then I cant be the best I can be. Her independence makes me stronger. So I'm looking for someone who's definitely smarter than me, really strong, warm compassionate and really understanding."

Shawn "Slim" Stockman

Shawn was born on September 26, 1972.
 
    "Our mission is to make people happy and to make them smile through our music. People can relate to our songs. Our songs can help people if they listen to them closely. We want to strive to become better with each album we release so we can gain more listeners."

Nathan 'Alex Vanderpool' Morris  

    Nathan was born on June 18, 1971 in the South side of Philadelphia. Raised mainly by there mother, Nate, his two sisters, and brother had a hard struggle. When Nate was nine or ten, his parents got divorced and his father left. That caused very severe financial problems in the family. "Basically my mom couldn't support us on her limited income" he say's, "After pop left us, things at home just weren’t what every kid wanted, we went through many situations." Although Nathan and his family had to struggle to get by, going to church regularly and singing in choirs helped him to strive harder for his goal, and believe in himself.

    When it came time to pick what high school he wanted to attend, he hadn't even considered Performing Arts. Mr. William Morrow was his junior high music teacher, he respected and admired him very much. "He was the person who kept me focused on what I wanted to accomplish in music." His wife taught music classes in The School For Creative And Performing Arts, "Mr. Morrow's wife made me feel guilty enough to go, and so I went." "It was hard for Nate to get adjusted to the new school. "When I first got there, the transition was kind of difficult but I eventually adapted to it.  The difficulty was the atmosphere in general. It was a small school which only had about two hundred guys and about four
hundred girls. I really wasn't use to being in such a small school, and so I didn't fit into the school format immediately. In my previous school, there were sometimes a thousand students, and I would maybe see the same student once or twice a day. In the School For Creative and Performing Arts, I might run into a particular student after one class, and then run into the same person during the next class period. That's how small it was. In a regular high school, I would have been lucky to run into the same person twice in a day, because there were so many students enrolled." In looking for something to keep him busy Nate decided to form a group,"I tried to find something else to do to keep myself occupied, and so I started a group." The success of the group had Nate's plans for college brought a halt. "I had planned on college after graduation.  Its just first when I decided I wanted to go to college, it was because I was planning on studying for a music career. People caution against putting all you eggs in one basket. I have always believed the opposite because the more eggs I put in one basket, the better it is for me to succeed. In that way, Im not scattering myself thin." Nate realized he had the choice of getting into a music career, or going to college "Since I couldn't have both, my choice was between the music industry and college. I had a direct avenue into the music industry, and I decided to just be in the group instead. At first, I eventually thought I wanted to go to college after my life settles down a bit. I think my reasoning was that I wanted to experience the college life. Now it's difficult to do that because first of all I'm a lot older, and second of all, things are going to be different because I'm Nathan
Morris from Boyz II Men, and the professors might give me special treatment," he concluded.

     Most people seem to think that fame can change a person's image or personality, for some people that may be true, but Nate strongly denies that rumor and insists that he has not been changed." Most people who know us always worry about the guys in the group changing as we become more famous, but I think what we see more is that the people around us change." In such a short amount of time the groups popularity has risen an extreme amount causing Nate and the group members to feel some pressure about each project they do "Although our first album has sold over 7.5 million copies, I still feel that some people aren't taking our talent seriously. I also know that a lot of new groups fall into the trap where the public doesn't really think that they will be around. That's why it's so important to us to keep doing the same thing, so that people understand that we're not just a passing fancy."  

Wanya 'Squirt' Morris  

    Wanya was born on July 29, 1973. His mother Carla Morris and father Dallas Thornton never married and broke up when he was young. Wanya has one brother Keri, and two sisters Serene and Dorothy.

    Ever since Wanya was young his family has encouraged him to sing, but in the start Wanya had his mind set on drawing "Everybody basically wanted me to sing, but at the same time, they wanted me to have something to fall back on. That wasn't the idea that I had. I wanted to draw, and actually drew for a little while. I drew the logo and tour jackets for the last Boyz II Men tour. I also created the logo for our new album, II, using some creative suggestions from my brothers. Eventually, my only career goal was to sing, and with the exception of art, I didn't want to do anything else."
 
    When Wanya was young, his living commendations were not what every child dreamed about. "I grew up in the projects. For a couple of years I grew up in the Richard Allen projects in Philadelphia. I lived there until I was about eight or nine, then I moved to Germantown. In Germantown, the living conditions were not great at all. We had electric sometimes, we had phone sometimes, we had water sometimes and sometimes we just had cold water. Then we moved to Nicetown, which was another part of Germantown, where living wasn't much better," he says. Wanya's childhood was not only filled with mental pain not but physical too, "My mom was living with her boyfriend, who is my brother and sister's father. I don't know why he didn't like me, but I do know that he use to beat the crap out of me for no reason what so ever."

    Luckily the relationship between Wanya's mother and her boyfriend ended and so did his vicious beatings.

    Ever since Wanya was young, he has always had a knack for getting people's attention. "When I was young, I was basically a ham.   If anyone ever asked me to sing, I would just sing. It didn't matter if I was in public or not, I would just come out and sing anything they requested." From child to adult, Wanya feels he hasn't changed that much when it comes to his personality.  "Basically, now I'm still the same way, except, I'm not as much as a ham as I use to be, because I know better now. I have been taught by people in the entertainment industry not to sing when I'm not on stage. I have to maintain a certain mystique in public and never show anybody everything I've got at one time," he finished.

    Wanya has always liked to have fun, especially in High School, "I would do all kinds of things to make the school year fun." But that eventually paid a toll on his grades. "The crazy thing was, after awhile, I played so much that my homework didn't even matter to me anymore. By the time I found out that I should have been doing my homework, my grades were so bad that it was too late for me to care." After Wanya got expelled from the High School For Creative and Performing Arts, he switched
schools a couple times until he found Willingboro High School at which he stayed until he graduated. 

    After Wanya finished High School he never had a plan to go to College, "I never wanted to go to college, but my family wanted me to. I was watching TV one night and Eddie Murphy told an interviewer the reason why he didn’t go to college is because people use to always say that he needed something to fall back on. When people would say that, it made him feel as though he was setting himself up for failure. Since entertainment is something that he wanted to do for the rest of his life, he didn't want to think about failure. That meant a lot to me, and I agree with his reasoning", he said.

    The international success of Boyz II Men has helped point Wanya's life in a more positive direction. "When we got Boyz II Men up and off the ground everything in my life looked up. The hard life that I lived before, makes our success feel extra good to me."

Note: This is taken from the Boyz II Men Biography

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