The Past, the Present, the Future is the fourth studio album from American R&B group Jodeci, released on March 31, 2015 on Sphinx Music Entertainment and distributed through Epic Records. It is the group's first studio album in 20 years.
Background
On October 20, 2014, it was announced by Centric and BET that Jodeci would be making their way back onto the music scene after a hiatus of nearly two decades at the 2014 Soul Train Awards by performing a medley of their hits, and also debuting a new song titled "Nobody Wins", their first single in 18 years, which features rapper B.o.B. Group member Mr. Dalvin explained the long-awaited release of their new music to Yahoo Music.
"'Sometimes it’s just the wrong timing,' said Mr. Dalvin explaining why the group has not released any new music since 1996's “Get on Up.”
"You can fall into the trap that a lot of artists fall into by just putting records out there because fans are excited and start tarnishing your legacy and body of work you’ve created. People waited all these years for some quality music – not just throwing music out there."
On November 30, 2014, at the Soul Train Awards, "The Bad Boys of R&B” reunited and performed a medley of their hits ("Freek'n You", "Stay", "Come and Talk to Me", and "Forever My Lady"), along with a snippet of their new single, “Nobody Wins”, with rapper B.o.B.
Recording and production
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Dalvin stated that despite recording dozens of songs together over the last 18 years, the group did not feel that they had a cohesive body of work for their fourth studio album. "We've recorded hundreds of songs, even if it's bits and pieces and fragments of songs that we could probably live off of for the rest of our lives. But when creating this album, we chose a body of work that really represents us as a group and represents what people are expecting to hear from Jodeci as a group. People will be pleasantly surprised. Fans can expect to hear their artistic growth. Some fans want 'Come and Talk to Me' Part 2, and that's not what it is, and we don't get pigeonholed by the radio and let our fans grow with us. As with their earlier work, most of the music would be self-produced. However, Dalvin confirmed that Timbaland, who was discovered by DeVante, will collaborate. "Timbaland, who started with us, I know he's going to be somehow involved in the project," he revealed.
In a fan chat on February 3, 2014 Timbaland revealed that he's reuniting with DeVante and lending his production to the new Jodeci project.
“People who follow Timbaland from day one, I met with DeVante and I’ma help work on the new Jodeci album, just for y’all. That’ll be my career coming in full circle, connecting back with DeVante.
However, Dalvin made it clear not to expect to hear the sound that Timbaland has created for Justin Timberlake and others recently.
“It couldn’t be a Timbaland type of project. A lot of people don’t know, my brother Devante really showed Timbaland how to produce records. We had our sound mixed with his sound. It would never be in one direction. It’s going to be a mix of Devante and Timbaland.”
“We finally came together and we had a nice body of work that we felt was a great album”. “With K-Ci & JoJo touring as well as Devante and myself doing production and other business ventures going on, we finally came together and we put together an album that we love.”
"The album was already in the works, but we were aware everyone was asking us for a date and time. We didn’t want to keep saying “It’s coming!” so we figured if we backed up off it, everyone would back up off us. The ball was always rolling though. We just didn't have a time frame though. People were like “You said this date, you said that date!” We didn't have a date and we wanted to make sure the time was right. Now is the right time, so we’re on the fast lane moving towards the release of the single and album."
In a pre-Grammy interview February, 2015 DeVante was asked about Timbaland's involvement in the project. "Maybe, we'll see. I don't know as of this point right now, but he's there. That's a friend, that's family you know."
In an interview with group member JoJo, he stated that before the group became known as Jodeci, the original song Jennifer, written by DeVante, was responsible for forming Jodeci as a group, bringing in K-Ci for the song. DeVante stated in a Vibe interview, I wrote a song about a girl I liked; the chorus was, "Where could I go wrong…" JoJo sang the song. People were saying we should do something with it.