Representative Albums: "A Jagged Era," "Jagged Little Thrill," "The Hits"
Representative Songs: "Let's Get Married," "Where the Party At," "Promise"
Biography
Rough-but-smooth male vocal quartet Jagged Edge formed in Atlanta, consisting of identical twin brothers Brandon "Case Dinero" Casey and Brian "Brasco" Casey, who had moved from their native Hartford, CT; Kyle Norman (aka "Quick"), whom they'd met through church activities; and Richard Wingo (aka "Wingo Dollar"), a late addition to the group suggested by Xscape's Kandi Burruss, who took their demo to superproducer Jermaine Dupri. Jagged Edge signed to Dupri's Columbia-distributed So So Def label and in the summer of 1997 released their debut single, "The Way That You Talk," featuring appearances by Dupri and Da Brat; it reached the Top 40 of the R&B chart and was also a pop chart entry. Early in 1998, Jagged Edge released their first album, A Jagged Era, which went gold and spawned the Top 20 R&B, Top 40 pop hit "Gotta Be." Their next single, "He Can't Love U," appeared in the fall of 1998 and reached the Top Five of the R&B chart and the Top 20 of the pop chart, going gold in the process. It prefaced the group's second album, J.E. Heartbreak, which topped the R&B chart and hit the Top Ten of the pop chart, selling over 2,000,000 copies and spawning the number one R&B hits "Let's Get Married" (also Top 20 pop) and "Promise" (also Top Ten pop). By the time of the release of Jagged Edge's third album, Jagged Little Thrill, in late June 2001, its leadoff single, "Where the Party At" (featuring Nelly), was nearing the R&B Top Ten and was in the pop Top 40. 2003's Hard and 2006's Jagged Edge followed. For 2007's The Baby Makin' Project, the group switched to Island, but Dupri had since taken up the post of president at the label's urban division, making the transition from Columbia a welcomed and natural one. ~ John Bush & William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Brian Casey
Brandon Casey
Kyle Norman
Richard Wingo
Jagged Edge is an AmericanR&B group that were originally signed through Jermaine Dupri's So So Def Records to Columbia Records. The group is made up of twin lead singers Brian and Brandon Casey (both born October 13, 1978), Kyle Norman, and Richard Wingo. Wingo was a late addition to the group, added after Kandi Burruss of Xscape recommended he be added. Kandi was also the one who brought the group to the attention of Dupri. The group has had a number of hit singles, many of which are produced by Dupri.
Jagged Edge began their mainstream recording career with the single "The Way That You Talk" in 1997. They followed this in 1998 with the album, A Jagged Era which managed to go gold featuring the singles "I Gotta Be" and "The Way That You Talk". "I Gotta Be" reached #11 on the R&B charts and #23 on the Hot 100.
Following up their debut album, Jagged Edge released J.E. Heartbreak in 2000. The album was the group's breakthrough album with several popular singles. The album went double platinum and had the hit single "Let's Get Married" which topped the R&B charts and reached #11 on the Hot 100. The album's second single, "He Can't Love You" had similar success, reaching #3 on the R&B charts and #15 on the Hot 100. It also featured the track "Promise" which, albeit a late single coming out in 2001, reached #1 on the R&B charts and #9 on the Hot 100. The album's lead single, "Keys To The Range", however was the sole flop from the album.
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Jagged Little Thrill and Hard
The group's third release, Jagged Little Thrill, was released in 2001 and went platinum. Its success was in large part, due to the up-tempo "Where The Party At," which reached #1 on the R&B charts and #3 on the Hot 100, the group's highest charting single. Two other singles ("Goodbye" and "I Got It 2") failed to become hits at radio.
Jagged Edge's fourth album, Hard, was released in 2003 and went gold. The album's single "Walked Outta Heaven" performed well on the charts, reaching #6 on the Hot 100 and #2 on the R&B charts. The follow-up single, "What's It Like" didn't fare well on the charts, thus ending the promotion for the album.
During this same year, Dupri and So So Def left for Arista Records but Jagged Edge decided to stay with Columbia.
Jagged Edge and Baby Makin' Project
Jagged Edge's fifth album, Jagged Edge, was released on May 9, 2006 by Columbia/Sony Music Urban and it went gold. It featured the hit urban single "Good Luck Charm". Also released on November 21st, 2006 was the The Hits collection featuring Jagged Edge's biggest hits plus a few album tracks. The album shared the single "Stunnas" that's also on the Jagged Edge album as a bonus track.
Jagged Edge parted ways with Columbia Records shortly after the release of their self-titled fifth album and signed back with Jermaine Dupri. Dupri re-signed the group to So So Def through Island Def Jam, which handles the distribution for So So Def, and where Jermaine Dupri is president of the urban division. The group were also granted their own record label called 581 Music which was credited on their album, Baby Makin' Project.
The only single released off Baby Makin' Project was "Put a Little Umph In it" featuring Ashanti. It only managed to reach #49 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart. The group recorded so much material for the project that they have saved eight of the tracks for another album, a release date for which has not been announced.
Present work
Jagged Edge are now signed to Slip-N-Slide Records with an album titled The Remedy due out in 2010. According to member Kyle Norman, the group has a number of collaborations planned. He stated, "So far we’re in talks with Rick Ross and Plies. We talked to Jay-Z about doing a song on the last album, so we’re going to try to pursue that again, and we’ve also been chatting with Snoop Dogg." [1]
