R&B duo
Men at Large arrived during the tail-end of the new jack swing era with strong support and creative input from fellow Clevelander
Gerald Levert. Expressive vocalists
Dave Tolliver and
Jason Champion began with Atlantic subsidiary EastWest and released two albums for the label:
Men at Large (1992) and the relatively mellow
One Size Fits All (1994). They reached Billboard's R&B chart with seven singles from those titles, including the Top Ten hits "Use Me" and "So Alone," the latter of which was a ballad addressed to
Tolliver's mother, who had recently passed. Third and fourth
Men at Large albums were issued through independent labels during the late '90s and 2000s. After the duo split,
Champion recorded contemporary gospel material and was featured on high-profile albums by A-listers
Kirk Franklin and
Deitrick Haddon.
Tolliver popped up on tracks by
Rome and
8Ball & MJG and released solo albums in 2009 and 2015. In 2016, with Edgar "Gemini" Porter in place of
Champion,
Tolliver reactivated
Men at Large through the single "Date Night." ~ Andy Kellman