i have mixed opinion over this,yes there is that reputation over jb (just like its also said sometimes that iit was damn hard for a 2eme voix singer to exist next to werra which cost marie paul as blaise was untouchable and mabiala and co were always behind ferre )
but then the two of them got the likes of aimelia baby ndombe mabiala even tutu for quite some time before guantanamo shining next to them
if we look at it well although its not perfectly true,tenorist leaders rarely have massive tenorists around who became stars
if we take papa wemba he'd had great tenorists but guys like kester,esperant,dindo,reddy,stino or even more recently alpatshino and apocadero made more of a long term impact than the luciana,liberateur and co
you take kester except his brother joly and maybe makolin if i remember his voice well( i have not listened to old victoria songs in ages) its debaba,guejo,ronaldinho and co who were more popular
and there is the case of evoloko who according to a similar legend just hated any very good singer in his group whatever category is voice is because he wanted to remain the absolute star
so maybe ferre would have got some proper time like aimelia and then chai ngenge got but as a tenor singer it would be much better for him to be in maison mere since werra needed a strong tenorist to counter jb
now if the question is also over the hype factor, in those days the hype system of bcbg and maison mere were not too far its not like these days were in bcbg you can take years to reach 10 public appearances at a concert or on tv