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The modern ideal of the boy band would look very different if impresario Maurice Starr hadn’t taken a group of young men from Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood under his wing in the early ’80s.

Childhood friends Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Bobby Brown, with the help of choreographer Brooke Payne, started a singing group in 1978; they caught Starr’s eye after they brought in vocalist Ralph Tresvant, and when Starr added Ronnie DeVoe, New Edition took shape.

The group’s hybrid of doo-wop harmonies and electro beats, which Starr dubbed “’80s black bubblegum music,” made their 1983 debut, Candy Girl, an R&B smash; the next year, their self-titled album spawned their first pop crossover hits, the peppy “Cool It Now” and the winsome “Mr.