During The Masked Singer’s season 12 finale, the Buffalos — now known as Boyz II Men — succeeded where no group has before, becoming the first band to win the Golden Mask trophy, but they didn’t initially have victory on their minds.
“For the umpteenth time they called us … and we decided that we were gonna do it,” Wanyá Morris exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the Wednesday, December 18, finale. “Because they called us a couple of times and we weren’t able to do it. So this last time we were like, ‘Alright, let’s just get it over with so they’ll never call us again.’”
Wanyá, 51, and his bandmates, Nathan Morris (no relation) and Shawn Stockman, thought doing the show would be “good exposure,” but they didn’t imagine they could take home the top honor. The Masked Singer has a history of eliminating major recording artists during season premieres, and the guys thought that might be their fate.
“[We thought], ‘We probably won’t win ’cause they’ll know who we are. We’re gonna be either guessed off, or if we mask our voices, we know they won’t like who we are and we’ll get kicked off,’” Wanyá recalled before Nathan, 53, interjected, “We were hoping to get kicked off the first night so we could go back home!”
Who is that? It’s the question asked by panelists on The Masked Singer multiple times in each episode, and the answer is: everybody. Since the show debuted in January 2019, the celebrity contestants have included Joey Fatone, Michelle Williams, Tori Spelling, Mickey Rourke, Patti LaBelle, Kelly Osbourne, Bret Michaels, Lil Wayne, Jordyn Woods, Wendy Williams, […]
After they started filming, however, they changed their tune. “Once we got there and we saw the energy and we felt the whole vibe, we were just like, ‘Look, man, as long as we’re here, we might as well stay,’” Wanyá told Us. “And win. And then leave!”
Shawn, 52, admitted that the trio “didn’t expect much from this experience,” but they soon “really got into” performing as the Buffalos.
Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman from Boyz II Men. Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images
“It allowed us to be ourselves, believe it or not,” he explained. “The masks allowed us to reveal things about who we are as singers, who we are as people, music lovers, ’cause a lot of people wouldn’t connect Boyz II Men to Toto or other songs that we did on the show, so it was nice for people to get a glimpse of our playlist, songs and music that we love from artists that we enjoyed ever since we were kids in some cases. So it was nice and it became deeper than just winning the whole thing.”
The guys even got choked up on stage during the finale, which Wanyá attributed to the unusual circumstances of competing on The Masked Singer as well as the realization that filming the show had brought them closer together.
“What made us more emotional than anything was the fact that we had overcome a situation that most people would bow out of. It was really hot in those suits, and we didn’t know if we were going to be able to pull off performances like [the finale] from the beginning,” he explained. “It just kind of felt like we were a new group to me. And we were being accepted as good singers, as good performers, and we weren’t even really human. … We all were the Buffalo, you know what I mean? Even though we’re individuals, we all embodied that same character and we overcame every obstacle, dehydration, we overcame anxiety. We overcame everything and we sang our hearts out for the people.”
Shawn agreed, adding: “It just made us understand that we still have the energy that we’ve always had [since] 33 years ago. Sometimes, with any relationship, you tend to take the dynamic that you’ve built on for granted, and this made us refocus. It made us remember why we did this in the first place.”
Boyz II Men doesn’t plan on slowing down in the new year, with tour dates booked all the way through July.
“A lot of people use the word ‘relevant’ in their own terms, and we feel like we are relevant to each other, and that’s more important to us than everything else,” said Nathan. “And as long as we stay relevant to each other, we’ll be able to ride right in with what everybody else is doing. And we got a lot coming up.”