Debarge

DeBarge
DeBarge circa 1983.
Background information
Also known as	The DeBarges The DeBarge Family
Origin	Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Genres	R&B Soul Funk Pop
Years active	1979–1991
Labels	Gordy Striped Horse RT Bis Truth Ministries
Associated acts	Switch Bobby DeBarge Tommy DeBarge El DeBarge Bunny DeBarge Chico DeBarge Kristinia DeBarge
Past members	Bunny DeBarge El DeBarge Marty DeBarge Randy DeBarge James DeBarge Bobby DeBarge (deceased) Chico DeBarge

DeBarge was an American music group whose repertoire included R&B, soul, funk, and pop music. Active throughout the late–1970s and the 1980s, the group comprised members of the DeBarge family. The group originally consisted of Mark, Randy, and El, Bunny, James, and Bobby joined later.

DeBarge released six studio albums, four of them with Motown's Gordy Records: The DeBarges (1981), All This Love (1982), In a Special Way (1983), and Rhythm of the Night (1985). The latter became the group's best-selling album and garnered the single "Rhythm of the Night", which neared the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. DeBarge entered its decline in 1986, when Bunny and El were offered solo deals with Motown and departed the group, and DeBarge was dropped from Motown soon afterward. The remaining members signed with Stripe Horse Records, an independent label, in 1987, which released their final studio album, Bad Boys. The group continued to perform for an additional two years, with Chico DeBarge joining the group in 1988. That year, Bobby and Chico were arrested for drug trafficking, and their convictions led to the group's dispersion in 1989, 10 years after its inception.

The DeBarge family are the children of Robert DeBarge, Sr. (d. 2009), a white man of French descent, and Etterlene DeBarge (née Abney), a black woman born in Michigan in 1935. They married when Etterlene was 17, a year after the death of her father James Abney, a church choir leader and peanut retailer. They separated in the mid-1970s. Etterlene remembers Robert DeBarge, Sr. as physically and emotionally abusive to her and the children, and said he used her youth, the absence of her father, and continuous pregnancy to control her. DeBarge, Sr. has been characterized as "domineering and physically abusive to his wife," and some of the DeBarge children have accused him of having sexually abused them.Bunny Debarge, the eldest, recalls being sexually abused by him between the ages of 7 to 13.