On Sunday, Bell Biv DeVoe, the group that splintered off from '80s kiddie band New Edition and ushered in a new era of hip-hop-inspired R&B in the '90s, is coming to Liv nightclub. Among those most excited about the show is Supa Qool DJ Quartermaine, who, in advance of the concert, just dropped a mix called The Heartbreak Kids, which includes New Edition and BBD tracks, as well as material from the group members' solo efforts.

Quartermaine has been putting out similar mixes for a few years now—tackling the discographies of artists such as Maxwell and Erykah Badu. "New Edition was on the 'to do' list," he says, adding that he almost dropped an NE mix this summer, when group members Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill and Ralph Tresvant performed at Ibiza.  "It's something I had in mind for a while, and then seeing that BBD was going to be at Liv on Sunday..."

R&B/soul mixes usually focus on the music of classic artists (Stevie Wonder has been mixed, re-mixed, and mixed again), and new school soul acts (like Badu). Why New Edition?

"They laid the blueprint for the new school boy band game," Quartermaine says. "Jackson 5 was the original, but then New Edition came along, as the new thing, and from them, everything else came: NKOTB, Backstreet, N'Sync. I think people have used what New Edition started, and what [New Edition creator] Maurice Starr started, and have just continued to update that formula. And the songs are, honestly, timeless—from the early stuff about young innocent love, to the stuff about groupie love and being on tour. They were one of the first groups to warn us about groupie love."

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And BBD, the group of Michael Bivins, Ronnie DeVoe and Ricky Bell, Quartermaine says, basically invented R&B thug posturing with songs like "Poison." "BBD was the blueprint for R Kelly, Chris Brown—BBD and Bobby Brown's solo career were the blueprint." he says. "There wasn't anyone that really had that extra street vibe to their R&B before then, and that's where R&B still is. You have a handful of Maxwells and Anthony Hamiltons doing classic soul, but everyone else is still sort of a hybrid of New Edition and rap stuff."

Quartermaine wanted to capture all of that in the mix—the early innocence of New Edition, the solo careers of Tresvant and Brown, the creation of BBD, and the group's periodic reunions. But he didn't want to do it in chronological order.

"I started with 'Candy Girl', then the second song is 'Hot Tonight,' which is their first, and then their last, and then I move on from there," he says. "I think it's cheesy to go in chronological order, I didn't want to do that. The music should be able to flow, and [mixing it up] shows people it's timeless. The fact that the '85 songs can mix well with the '96 songs shows that it's timeless.

Quartermaine says his favorite track included in the mix is "N.E. Heartbreak," from New Edition's 1988 Heart Break album.

"Even moreso than the song, I remember that feel," he says. "I might’ve been in the 6th grade, and I remember the yellow and black outfits, and the shoes that were mismatched, with a yellow shoe on one foot, and then a black on the other. And then the hammer pants, before they went outta style. And now Hammer pants have come back in, funnily enough."

"Poison" also ranks high, in part because it's a song that most DJs can rely on to heat up a party—even though the track is 20 years old.  "In the early '90s, when 'Poison' dropped, it stopped the world," Quartermaine says. "'Poison still plays at parties every night—it's like 'It Takes Two' or 'The Humpty Dance'. It's one of those ubiquitous party records where, no matter what color you are, or what spot you're in, you're gonna hear it. They were ahead of their time.