Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliott is a globally known recording artist, frontman, lead vocalist, and bass player with 3 billboard hits including the “Da Butt” which peaked at #1 on the US Billboard Hot Black Singles in 1988 and was also a featured performance in Spike Lee’s film “School Daze”. Also, to his credit, his group Experience Unlimited aka E.U. was not only an opening act for the commencement ceremony for the 2016 opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture but they also have an exhibit on the third floor of the museum.

Born in Red Springs, North Carolina, Gregory’s mother Ms. Ernestine Elliott moved her family to Washington, DC when he was only 2 years old and eventually settled into the Valley Green neighborhood of Southeast. Ms. Elliott raised her children with strong Christian values and kept them in church and school. Gregory was drawn to music at an early age and would often make bass guitar sounds with his mouth and bang on desktops. His mother noticed his love for music and bought him a six-string guitar when he was 13 but Gregory was drawn to the bassline of it and tried to play bass. Self-taught, he learned to play bass by watching musicians on TV. One song, in particular, he played every day was “Tighten Up” by Archie Bell & The Drells. He continued to listen to other artist such as James Brown and Kool & The Gang and practiced, practiced, practiced until he got better at it and had learned to play more songs. He also started listening to different genres of music and discovered a love for Rock and Roll. It was also around this time when Gregory adopted the name “Sugar Bear” – given to him by Ms. Ethel Knight, his afterschool caretaker. He would always be eating Sugar Crisps cereal with “Sugar Bear” the bear on the front of the box to the point that Ms. Knight told Gregory that he started looking like the bear on the box. From then on… Gregory became known as “Sugar Bear”.

Sugar Bear attended Ballou High School in Southeast DC where he played football and he boxed but according to him, “it wasn’t my calling.” All of the guys who played football and basketball had all of the girls and since sports wasn’t his calling, Sugar Bear got together with a group of musicians and put together a band named The Rebels. Ballou had talent shows and that was the perfect opportunity for The Rebels to showcase their skills and they won for best new group. (The band’s name changed from The Rebels to The Young Hustlers to Experience Unlimited (E.U.) – inspired by The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Are You Experienced”.) That was the beginning of E.U. After the talent show, they had the opportunity to open up for the legendary Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers at the Panorama Room in Southeast Washington, DC – it was the largest crowd that the band had played before at that time. “People liked us, but they wouldn’t dance so Chuck Brown pulled me to the side and said ‘Son, you have a lot of great talent, but you have to play what the people want to hear’. We stayed around and watched the set and I was amazed at the call and response! The whole place was jumping for two hours straight and that day, I learned what the Go-Go music scene was all about.” said Sugar Bear. That following Monday, E.U. rehearsed and changed their entire format to a Go-Go style.

Sugar Bear had become popular but liked to play the background, sitting in the back playing his bass. It took a friend of his, another Go-Go legend Little Benny, to tell Sugar Bear ‘You have to come up front, people want to see you Bear. Everybody came out to see YOU, I can show you how to do this.’ Little Benny showed Sugar Bear some inside tricks of the game, call and responses, and some steps, and from there… Sugar Bear and E.U. took off!

In 1988, one song took E.U. from a local band to a globally known name that is STILL relevant today – Da Butt. That blessing has afforded Sugar Bear the opportunity to still perform concerts, festivals, nightclubs, and private events and is starting back up as the pandemic restrictions are lifting. He has collaborated with Salt-N-Pepa on “Shake Your Thang” and has shared the stage with countless stars. In 2019, during the #DontMuteDC campaign, DC native and movie star Regina Hall was the host of the 2019 BET Awards and brought out Sugar Bear & E.U. as well as Rare Essence to perform. Most recently during the 93rd Academy Awards, actress Glenn Close shouted out Sugar Bear and danced to the song “Da Butt.” Sugar Bear was blown away by the mention and was quoted saying, “I had butterflies all throughout my body. I was overwhelmed. I started thanking God, like, ‘Wow, this is large.’” Glenn Close is not the only celebrity to acknowledge Sugar Bear & E.U. – Fantasia, Jill Scott and CeeLo Green at the 2020 Soul Train Awards have also performed medleys of “Da Butt” during their shows.