Later on, he served as both mentor and a co-producer of his siblings' band, DeBarge, eventually joining them to fill in for departing members El and Bunny.

Personal problems, including substance abuse which eventually led to drug trafficking charges in 1988, plagued DeBarge in later years, taking focus away from his musical career.

The group – which consisted of DeBarge, Williams, Phillip Ingram, Tommy DeBarge, TC Brown, Stanley Brown, Jody Sims, Arnett Hayes, Adam Frye, Darnell Wyrick, MC Clark and Stanley Hood – then recorded an album in 1976 under the name Hot Ice, entitled Pall Mall Groove, which included DeBarge's incredible singing and piano performance on his composition "Please Don't Let Me Go", released in 1977 on Polydor/Germany, in 1979 in the USA/Canada as SMASH on Source Records/MCA, and in 2005 on Burndsman Records worldwide.

That year, DeBarge returned to Grand Rapids, despondent that his career hadn't progressed; he ventured deeper into a heroin addiction.

After the break up of White Heat, Gregory Williams remained in Akron, and sought out new musicians [including Tommy DeBarge, Phillip Ingram, Jody Sims, Eddie Fluellen, MC Clark and Arnett Hayes] to start a new band.

At Williams' invitation, DeBarge, seeking a chance to find musical stardom, vowed to get clean from his heroin addiction.

Bobby co-produced their debut album, and co-wrote with younger brother El the song "Queen of My Heart", in which he performed falsetto ad-libs near the end of the recording.

However, Bobby's career halted in 1988 after he was convicted on drug trafficking charges in Grand Rapids and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Following his release in 1993, he vowed to stay clean, signing a management agreement with Bernd Lichters (for whom DeBarge, with Hot Ice, recorded the Pall Mall Groove album years earlier, as well as signing a management agreement as partnership with Ed Wright in 1985), who guided him during 1994 to record songs he wrote in prison.

In June 2019, nearly two years after TV One had first aired Switch's installment of the Unsung series, the network released a biopic about Bobby DeBarge.