In 1990, a 21-year-old producer named CHRIS STOKES recruited three Los Angeles elementary school students to create an R&B- flavored pop group known as Immature. His intense, hands-on management style led to a successful run of soundtrack cuts, albums, movies, and a recurring TV role for breakout star Marques Houston. A decade later, Stokes outdid himself with B2K, a teen quartet that sold millions of records, starred in the hit movie You Got Served, and packed concert arenas across the country. Though lead singer Omarion would go on to solo stardom, the group, whose name signified “Boys of the New Millennium,” lasted only three years before breaking up amid whispers of internal strife and financial disputes. Late last year, two artists Stokes once managed charged the self-described “King of Black Boy Bands” with sexual abuse. A flurry of denials and retractions did little to quiet the rumors and speculation. Aside from a terse press release, Stokes has neverpublicly discussed the allegations against him—until now. What happens to child stars when the music’s over? Linda Hobbs investigates.
For a certain amount of years, I was molested. I wouldn’t say exactly by Chris, but he would organize it.
Quindon Tarver is one of the Stokes artists nobody talks about much anymore. Best known for his cover of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” from the 1996 Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, Tarver also released a self-titled album the same year on Virgin Records before being dropped by T.U.G. and returning in 1997 from L.A. to his native Plano, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas.
Now 25, he works at Countrywide Home Loans in the customer service department. “I’m a people person,” he says cheerfully. On Sundays he’s at his grandfather’s church in McKinney, Texas, where he sang “Jesus Loves Me” when he was 4 years old.
By the time he was 8, his mom was signing him up for local talent shows. At 11 he met an MCA Records rep named Todd Yancy, who passed his press kit along to some industry contacts. “That next day we received a call from Chris Stokes,” says Tarver.
They planned to meet at a Doubletree hotel where Stokes was staying with Immature. “I knew who Immature was, but I had no idea who he was.”
When Chris Stokes met Quindon Tarver, Stokes asked him to belt something out on the spot. He was impressed by the boy’s silky, anointed voice. “He told my mom he wanted to fly us out to L.A.,” Tarver says. But there was another thing Stokes needed to mention. “I’m getting ready to go to court on a molestation charge,” Tarver says Stokes told him and his mother, “but it’s not true. I’m going to win it.”
Stokes vehemently denies this. “That’s ridiculous,” he says. “I never said anything like that.” VIBE was unable to find any criminal records against Stokes in Los Angeles or Texas. Either way, Tarver and his mom were too geeked to have second thoughts. Two weeks later, just a month shy of his 12th birthday, he was in a California studio with Stokes. Within another two weeks, Stokes had secured him a recording contract. “It happened like overnight,” Tarver recalls with awe in his voice.
Stokes promised him he’d win a Grammy, but, says Tarver, “everything just started going downhill after my first album.” Looking back, he says he was “manipulated,” “cheated,” and “sabotaged” by Stokes.
But according to Tarver, the damage to his career was just the beginning. “I have had some things that haunted me for quite some time,” he says, his voice a whisper. “He is a very dirty, rotten guy.”
In January 2008, 13 years after he stopped working with Stokes, Quindon Tarver stood up in church and told his whole congregation that he’d been molested as a child. He has never spoken of it outside of church before, and the words don’t come easily now. “Wow,” he says, pausing to take a deep breath. “For a certain amount of years, I was molested. I wouldn’t say exactly by Chris, but he would organize it.” Tarver stops speaking. It sounds like he’s hyperventilating. “He’d organize activities to be done as he sat and watched.... Watching or coaching, if you will. He would make another member of
[Immature] like, come and do things...Oh my God. Four years. It was rough.”
Tarver says Stokes made him take showers with the other boys. He says Stokes would ask him, “Who do you think of at night when you masturbate?” He says Stokes made him and Marques Houston kiss each other. “[I can take] a lie detector test, anything,” he says. “This is just a little bit of the things I went through.”
Houston laughs off Tarver’s allegations:
“That’s nonsense. That’s bullshit. Niggas try to use your name to get famous. Anybody even buying that or believing that, they’re dummies. I’m a man, I don’t mess with boys. It’s just not going down like that. Sorry.”
Tarver says he confided in Jenee, the lead singer of Stokes’ group Gyrl. “I thought I could trust her,” he says. But after that, he says, “My career was pretty much over.” He believes Stokes spread rumors that he was gay, halted his singing engagements, and shelved plans for his second album. He eventually headed back to Texas and kept the pain to himself. Tarver says he went into a depression, abused drugs, and became suicidal. “I really loved these people,” he says. “I really cared about them, and I realize I was nothing but...a product.” Around the time he was 18, he says he would call and leave voice mails on Stokes’ phone. “I just wanted to know, Why?” No one ever called him back.
“Nothing that you’ve said about Quindon is accurate or true, not one thing,” says Stokes angrily in response to Tarver’s claims. “I handled business with him, just like I do with all my artists, vocal business. No offense to Quindon but...he flopped. His songs came out, they didn’t work. People did not like his video. They did not really like him. They did not like how he performed. He was heavy-set and fat... He wasn’t a success. You have to look at success stories. People can talk about you in the street that don’t have nothing, but go talk...to the people that matter in the business.” Quindon says his “crying days are over.” He’s forgiven Stokes and Immature. He’s even picked up singing again and auditioned for the seventh season of American Idol—making it as far as the top 50. “I’ve given it to God,” he says. “He can take care of it better than anybody can. I think [Stokes] felt like he killed my name, he killed my career, everything. But see, what God has for me is for me, and ain’t nothing he could do about it,” he says. “[Stokes is] not going to stay on top forever...God’s not going to allow that.”
Come back to VIBE.com tomorrow for the final excerpt of “STOKED.”
Read "STOKED" Part 1.
Read "STOKED" Part 2.
Read “STOKED” Part 3.
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