Michael Best, aka Nitty Green, is a member of RIFF, an R&B/Pop vocal group from Paterson, NJ, which formed while its members were teenagers attending Paterson's Eastside High School. The ensemble began under the name 'The Playboys' in the late 1980s, with a style strongly influenced by doo wop.

After their soul-stirring performance in the 1989 film, "Lean on Me", starring Morgan Freeman, the group changed its name to RIFF and signed to SBK Records, CEO Charles Koppelman, releasing a self-titled album in 1991. The group scored several respectable hits, including 3 in the Billboard Hot 100: "My Heart Is Failing Me", "Everytime My Heart Beats" and "If You're Serious". In addition, they performed the title track for the hit movie "White Men Can't Jump", starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson.

Following the success of the album, the group appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show, The Tonight Show and Soul Train (just to name a few), and opened on tour for Vanilla Ice and LL Cool J. The group's 2nd album, To Whom It May Concern, was released in 1993 and had 2 charting singles on the R&B charts.

Nitty Green, along with two of his fellow RIFF members joined the group, Men Of Vizion in the late 90's who also had 3 top 20 singles on the Billboard charts. Produced by Teddy Riley, Joe, and Rodney and Fred
Jerkins.

With no bad blood between Riff, the group continued to reunite occasionally and bring again the Eastside “Songbirds” to their adoring fans — even into summer 2013 as the opening act for Cyndi Lauper on her “She's So Unusual" tour. Since then, Riff has shared the stage with some of R&B's most notable artists such as Chante Moore, Force MD's, Hi-Five, Christopher Williams, Shai and many more. Most recent career highlights are opening for Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, producer extraordinaire, Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds in 2018 and sharing the stage with pop music legends, Lance Bass of N'SYNC and O-Town on the Pop 2000 Tour in the summer of 2019.

With such a footprint in R&B, it is no wonder fans have been clamoring for their latest — Riff has reemerged as vocally innovative as ever, releasing their highly anticipated new single “You’re The Inspiration”, a soulful
rendition of the Chicago classic.

Most recently, Nitty Green has created a video podcast called "Vibe Sessions" along with his life-long friends, Little "Pie" McElveen and Danielle Silva. In just one year, they have built a refreshing social media platform, where they discuss topics related to "Life, Love and Music". In addition, their interviews with celebrity guests, such as the Force M.D.'s, Mr. Dalvin of Jodeci, Shai, Hi-Five, H-Town, Shanice and super producer/songwriter/CEO Cory Rooney, have quickly become a favorite amongst their viewers.

With his creative juices flowing, Nitty has been hard at work on a solo project which has produced his singles "Young OG", “With Me”, “They Don’t Wanna See Us (Keep Lovin’ Me)” and his latest single "Don’t Tell Me" from his solo EP, scheduled for release in Fall 2022.
