AHMIR

See Photo Gallery for image of actual article. - VIBE Magazine (Sept. 2007)

See Photo Gallery for image of actual article. - Billboard

When the Boston R&B group Ahmir takes the stage at Berklee Performance Center tonight, it will be among a couple of dozen regional artists who were invited to perform at the first New England Urban Music Awards. Like the evening's other performers, Ahmir is an unsigned band. The quartet, which has never played outside of the Northeast, will release its first album next month.

Unlike the other acts, when Ahmir takes the stage tonight it will be performing the No. 4 song on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales chart.

''Things are starting to catch fire," says Ahmir cofounder Leon Jones, a Dorchester native who works in customer service at Verizon Communications. Ahmir's swift, startling rise on the charts is the latest instance of grass-roots, Internet-fueled promotion leading to a big-time payoff for independent musicians. Ahmir recorded ''Welcome to My Party" three months ago. The group posted a downloadable MP3 file of the song on its MySpace page (www.myspace.com/ahmirmusic). Its manager, Michael Cheung, sent out copies of the single to more than 700 DJs, some of whom started spinning the song in clubs. Cheung also assembled a gung-ho street team to talk up the track to retail clerks in stores across the country. ''Welcome to My Party" debuted in the top 10 on April 8, a week after its release. The following week, the single, which fuses classic R&B harmonies with edgy beats and an antiviolence rap, moved up to its current position at No. 4.

Cheung, who began managing Ahmir in 2002 during his first year at New England School of Law, says that no matter how great the music is, this sort of unexpected breakout comes from a happy confluence of hard work and good luck.

''There's no real playbook," says Cheung, whose day job is in the litigation department at insurance company AIG. ''In addition to the song being very good, I have a very good team of people who were able to push the single at retail, even though it's not on a major label. They're playing it in stores and putting it in listening booths and on end-cap displays. Clerks started recommending it to customers. If someone asked for Mary J. Blige, they mentioned that they might like this new artist, Ahmir. Some clubs are playing the single, and the MySpace page has been amazing for connecting people. It was more strategy than money. Everything feeds off each other."

Ahmir is Cheung's brainchild. He put the group together four years ago after holding ''American Idol"-style auditions that he publicized with fliers, e-mails, and ads in The Boston Phoenix. Cheung's concept was to create a male vocal group in the mold of Boyz II Men and Jagged Edge. He found four talented young singers in Jones, then a music performance major at Northeastern; Michael McDonald, a BU grad and veteran of the renowned Boys Choir of Harlem; Mark E. Robertson, who was studying music business at Berklee; and K.C. Washington, an aspiring model with an old-school falsetto.

The group has written and recorded around 35 songs during the past few years, 15 of which made it onto the forthcoming album. Locally, WILD (97.7 FM) has been playing ''Welcome to My Party," which can be sampled at the ''Club Ahmir" section of the band's website, www.ahmirmusic.com. The silky smooth ballad ''Wedding Song" is also being previewed at the website.

Jones says that while the group's members hope to become the biggest selling R&B group of all time, they're also committed to spreading a positive message through their music. ''Respect my house," instructs the rapper/host in ''Welcome to My Party. ''We'll make sure you have the most fun possible/ don't wanna see nobody go to the hospital/ Break it up break it up break it up."

''We love feel-good music, but also thought-provoking music that moves your emotions and sends a good message," says Jones, ''I think that's missing in urban music."

Jones and his three bandmates financed their debut album themselves. Cheung has invested $30,000 of his own money in marketing and promoting Ahmir. He's also actively shopped recordings to record labels, with no success so far. But the rapid ascent of ''Welcome to My Party" on the Billboard charts may be just the boost the band needs, Cheung believes, to attract the interest of a major label.

''A lot of labels right now are so afraid of taking risks," he says. ''No matter how good the music is, they pretty much sign people who are selling on their own or are friends with P. Diddy. I think they'll be coming to me now."

- The Boston Globe

See Photo Gallery for image of actual article. - THE METRO (Boston)

See Photo Gallery for image of actual article. - The Boston Globe

See Photo Gallery for image of actual article. - THe Boston Herald