he/him
The 90's US One-Hit Wonders Rate: WINNER REVEALED - Goodbye, farewell and amen
- Thread starter Ironheade
- Start date
No! This is sad. I'm glad to see The Amps got mentioned.
she/her
I just saw Us and I am now too afraid to listen to I Got Five On It ever again.
Well, we're halfway down the list, and what I thought was going to be a short little modest rate has ballooned into this big beast... it is ever thus, with my projects. So what is going next?
A real test of my ability to get walls of text out of minimal material, that's what.
35. MY BOO
Average score: 6.489
Highest scores: 4 x 10 (@WowWowWowWow , @əʊæ, @Hurricane Drunk , @4Roses )
Lowest scores: 1 x 2 (@yuuurei )
Chart positions: #31 Hot 100, #13 Radio Songs, #16 Mainstream Top 40, #18 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, #2 Rhythmic Songs
Year-End Hot 100: #88 (1996)
Who? Oh yeah, them...
Oof. Boy, we haven't had one of these in a while, huh? By that, I mean a writeup where there's really not much on the backstory, AND hardly anything to say afterwards, AND the artist basically disappears afterwards... and the Baz Luhrmann connection I mentioned in yesterday's post, in which there was literally only one single and no more. There's hardly even any pictures of today's artist available. Let me tell you, I live for shit like this, people. So, let's take a look at these Ghost Town DJs, and see if I can't squeeze a bit more writeup blood out of a seemingly unpropitious stone...
Hideous 90's Rap Album Covers II: Electric Boogaloo
So, anyway, the Ghost Town DJs originate from Atlanta, and were a key part of that city's thriving bass music scene – we didn't have crunk or trap yet, but the ATL was still a national centre for party rap. Founding member Rodney Terry, a Miami native by origin, has referred to the name as being a takeoff from one of the founding fathers of bass music, Luther Campbell's Ghetto Style DJs, with which he had been associated back in the 80's. Now, here's where things get odd. They released one album in 1996, entitled Frantic, on So-Lo Jam Records (a hip-hop and dance music label that was a subdivision of the Georgia-based independent label Intersound). To be honest, I'm not even sure what the hell this album is. I know it exists, it's on Discogs and RateYourMusic, but in any retrospective on the Ghost Town DJs and “My Boo” that I've seen, I cannot find a single reference to it – to make matters even odder, the producers credited on it are not the same members that Wikipedia cites as making up the DJs. I did find a short review for it on RYM, but even that's an odd beast, as it refers to it as “little to no vocals, only bass and a drum machine... feels unfinished”, and one of the genre tags is “instrumental hip-hop”. So what Frantic actually is and where it fits in, I have no idea, but it can't have been successful: Wikipedia's discography section doesn't even seem to know this album exists! One thing it definitely does not contain, also, is “My Boo”. That song was actually recorded for an unrelated compilation album called So So Def Bass All-Stars, which as the name suggests was a showcase for artists from the Jermaine Dupri run label of the same name. And thereby hangs a tale.
Case in point.
See, over in Atlanta, there was a bit of a tradition going on for hip-hop and R&B club DJs, to take the lead vocals (most often female) from ballads and remix them by putting them over high-tempo bass beats. Jermaine Dupri liked the idea of turning that concept into an actual song, and so did So So Def's A&R director, Jonathan Smith, who oversaw the Bass All-Stars compilation series. Smith happened to know Rodney Terry, as he was the promotional agent for Def Jam in Atlanta, and decided to have him produce a song for the compilation, alongside Carlton “Carl Mo” Mahone, also a popular producer in the local area. Though Smith was also involved in doing so, he could not be credited for it due to his A&R position, but Terry has confirmed that he was the executive producer on “My Boo”. They ran into a bit of a problem, though, when Akema Johnson-Day, the singer whom they had hired to do the lead vocals, didn't turn up because of conflicting recording schedules. Luckily, they had a solution on hand: Akema had already contracted a singer named Virgo Williams to do her backing vocals, and they decided to just use her. And thus, one of urban radio's biggest hits of 1996 was born.
So what do I think?
SEVEN. As I've mentioned before, there's one big factor that makes “My Boo” distinctive in the grand scheme of 90's R&B hits: the sinewy, fast-paced and intense beat, coupled with the subtle and sweet layered vocals of Virgo Williams, whose languid vocal lines drift over the hard-driving drums nicely and create a great sense of light and shade that I think is very interesting indeed. That's the only real string that “My Boo” has to its bow, but it's a good strong string. Well, that and its chorus, which has a nice catchy melody, and though the lyrics are a bit cheesy, that undulating melody that combines extended harmonized phrases and quick staccato solo vocal parts gets them into your head effectively. Virgo's got a nice voice too, well able to express sincere devotion and the bliss of her relationship without sounding too corny about it, and possessing a good ability to layer her high harmonies and a solid midrange tone that slides nicely in between those rattling hi-hats. However, this song could have scored better, were it not for some noticeable faults. It's clearly made a bit on the cheap, with ringing synth patches that sound like they came from a ballad from about half a decade earlier, and the drum sounds are kind of flat and plasticky, though the 808s are still nice. Not to mention, it's kind of interesting in how minimal it is at times, but sometimes that works to its disadvantage, particularly with parts of the verses that are almost entirely unadorned. Taken altogether, that doesn't quite amount to something that I'd want to listen to in the six minutes of its full version; edited down a bit, however, and the simple joys of “My Boo” and that great invigorating chorus get their best possible chance to shine. Yeah, not really much to say here, just a nice basic R&B dancefloor bop. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.
Where Are They Now?™
The Ghost Town DJs sort of take the “one-hit wonder” tag to a new level, just like Baz Luhrmann did earlier in the rate. Because, you see, aside from Frantic, they literally never released anything else. Ever. “My Boo” was their only single.
There's some different accounts of what exactly went down there, but the upshot appears to be that it wasn't exactly by their own choice. (Most of this is coming from interviews twenty years later, most particularly a Spin one coinciding with the 20th anniversary of “My Boo”, so some of this may have to be taken with a grain of salt.) Terry recalls that he was the only one out of the Ghost Town DJs that was actually signed to So So Def, and that that caused a headache for Columbia, who distributed that label at the time. He also mentions that, at the time, Virgo was signed to “bad management”, who prevented her from working with Terry again – and to make matters worse, she was not only not signed to So So Def, she wasn't signed to Columbia or any associated record label at all. (Hence, also, why neither she nor any member of the group was in the video, which Virgo apparently didn't even know was being shot.) I believe the situation was that she was an unsigned artist at the time, but working with a production company. Put all together, that meant that, while he and Virgo had made plans to come together and continue the group, it was not possible. Smith, however, remembers things a little differently:
But the song had quite a substantial afterlife, and only came to greater prominence in the 2010's. Firstly it was through a sample in Ciara's 2013 hit “Body Party”, but much more surprising is its revival as a meme. Remember the Running Man Challenge? Y'know, that Vine meme from 2016 of people doing the Running Man dance to this song? Yeah, that caused “My Boo” to re-chart... at #27. Yes, the astute among you will notice that that's four spots higher than it first reached in 1996. The streaming era does produce some funny old anomalies sometimes. The Ghost Town DJs do appear to still exist in some form, because they have official Twitter and Instagram pages and post on them regularly, and there's links to book them too. Who exactly is involved, I cannot find out, but it appears to have been spurred by the song's revival after the Running Man Challenge, to some extent. So I'm going to call it: they can join Rick Astley in the hallowed halls of artists whose career was resurrected by a meme.
Cue Chariots of Fire.
So now, we may as well run through what happened to our various protagonists in the twenty years and counting following “My Boo”. For the most part, it's really not a lot. Virgo now uses the artist name of “Madison Bleu”. I can find very little evidence that she released any actual music of her own, either as Virgo or as Madison Bleu, though she still posts somewhat regularly on her Facebook page. Rodney Terry also fell off the map – though he had had quite a few production credits on various independent-label hip-hop and R&B singles in the decade before “My Boo”, his list of credits goes completely cold after that, if Discogs is to be believed. Carlton Mahone, on the other hand, did continue to have some success in his line of work; he had a co-production credit on at least one other bona fide smash hit, Big Boi's 2003 Hot 100 number one single “The Way You Move” (Mahone's association with the Outkast having begun three years earlier when he produced “Gangsta Shit” on Stankonia), and also produced for some other Atlanta-area rappers like Pastor Troy. However, his list of credits more or less runs dry as well in the mid-2000's, with the only other named appearances after that, again according to Discogs, being for various samples of “My Boo”. As for Jonathan Smith? Well, he's had quite a successful career of his own in the following years as an artist...
Skeet skeet, motherfucker.
Yup. You probably know Jonathan Smith better as Lil Jon. Dang, no wonder I thought “My Boo” sounded a bit like an early crunk song, huh? Funny to think that Jermaine Dupri and Lil Jon, two of the biggest producers in hip-hop for the next decade, were both working together on this one, seemingly modest little song. But then again, such is often the case with superstars – they don't always come from the places you might expect.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
Chewed up and spit out and boo'd off stage
saviodxl (4.2): Idontknowher.gif
ModeRed (4): Has no 'oomph' to it - wafts past and then is gone… (Ooh, spoooooooky.)
unnameable (5): Enjoyable enough.
Filippa (6): It’s ok.
DominoDancing (6): Fine but unimpressive. (A trio of signature Six-Point-Something type commentaries, there.)
Auntie Beryl (4.6): Another first time listen for me, this one. Man, the US and UK were poles apart in 1996. (As I realized doing some of these. But the US were spared Boyzone, so on balance, I think they probably come off better... - Ed.) *listens* Blimey, it’s dull.
yuuurei (2): Gives me a headache and the lyrics are so bland.
Empty Shoebox (4): The pitch of the voice in the chorus sounds unnaturally high, and that puts me off. (Someone who knows astrology make something up about Virgo here.)
DJHazey (3): Nice beat at least, but not really my bag.
CorgiCorgiCorgi (6): This just makes me want to listen to Ciara's Body Party. (Which is a choon, to be fair.)
Boo'd up
Ganache (8): The beat sounds like a basic Casio preset, the singing isn't great, and the production is bit shabby but dangit it somehow all comes together to be a solid bop. (Always cool when that happens. Sometimes, an album can sound like it was recorded through a soggy teabag and have Kermit the Frog on vocals, and yet turn out a classic anyway. Go figure.)
Seventeen Days (7): Yet another song that I used to hear all the time, yet I never knew the title before. Thanks, a lot, John Garabedian and Open House Party!
pop3blow2 (8): Just a solid basic bop here. Nothing more, nothing less, but needed in every era of music.
chanex (7.5): LOLOL for that background inoffensive unnoticeable jam! (Until it says BOO!, that is. Because it's a SPOOPY GHOOOOOOST WOOOOOOO)
CasuallyCrazed (7): Best version is the Mariah Angels Abortion version. (I used to play bass for Mariah Angels Abortion. We could have been huge.)
Andy French (7): I scream every time I hear this now because of the memes, but it also goes off? (See also: "All Star". Yeah, I said it.)
berserkboi (9.2): Pretty awesome actually!
iheartpoptarts (9): Yay being on plug.dj and debating over whether the neon bikini era was even a thing. (Consensus: yes.)
4Roses (10): NOW WE ARE TALKING! This song drinks from the same youth fountain as Jlo and Gwen. Timeless smash.
WowWowWowWow (10): As I continuously played and thought of this song since it first came out, I’d like to think I am at least 38% responsible for the success of the Running Man Challenge. (Nah, I'd have said it was more like 37% mate.)
əʊæ (10): The nostalgia for being 18 and hanging out with my former friend just watching Vine compilations for hours is strong with this one. (Now I just need a 90's hit to retroactively soundtrack my 18-year-old LAN parties...)
A real test of my ability to get walls of text out of minimal material, that's what.
35. MY BOO
Average score: 6.489
Highest scores: 4 x 10 (@WowWowWowWow , @əʊæ, @Hurricane Drunk , @4Roses )
Lowest scores: 1 x 2 (@yuuurei )
Chart positions: #31 Hot 100, #13 Radio Songs, #16 Mainstream Top 40, #18 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, #2 Rhythmic Songs
Year-End Hot 100: #88 (1996)
Who? Oh yeah, them...
Oof. Boy, we haven't had one of these in a while, huh? By that, I mean a writeup where there's really not much on the backstory, AND hardly anything to say afterwards, AND the artist basically disappears afterwards... and the Baz Luhrmann connection I mentioned in yesterday's post, in which there was literally only one single and no more. There's hardly even any pictures of today's artist available. Let me tell you, I live for shit like this, people. So, let's take a look at these Ghost Town DJs, and see if I can't squeeze a bit more writeup blood out of a seemingly unpropitious stone...
Hideous 90's Rap Album Covers II: Electric Boogaloo
So, anyway, the Ghost Town DJs originate from Atlanta, and were a key part of that city's thriving bass music scene – we didn't have crunk or trap yet, but the ATL was still a national centre for party rap. Founding member Rodney Terry, a Miami native by origin, has referred to the name as being a takeoff from one of the founding fathers of bass music, Luther Campbell's Ghetto Style DJs, with which he had been associated back in the 80's. Now, here's where things get odd. They released one album in 1996, entitled Frantic, on So-Lo Jam Records (a hip-hop and dance music label that was a subdivision of the Georgia-based independent label Intersound). To be honest, I'm not even sure what the hell this album is. I know it exists, it's on Discogs and RateYourMusic, but in any retrospective on the Ghost Town DJs and “My Boo” that I've seen, I cannot find a single reference to it – to make matters even odder, the producers credited on it are not the same members that Wikipedia cites as making up the DJs. I did find a short review for it on RYM, but even that's an odd beast, as it refers to it as “little to no vocals, only bass and a drum machine... feels unfinished”, and one of the genre tags is “instrumental hip-hop”. So what Frantic actually is and where it fits in, I have no idea, but it can't have been successful: Wikipedia's discography section doesn't even seem to know this album exists! One thing it definitely does not contain, also, is “My Boo”. That song was actually recorded for an unrelated compilation album called So So Def Bass All-Stars, which as the name suggests was a showcase for artists from the Jermaine Dupri run label of the same name. And thereby hangs a tale.
Case in point.
See, over in Atlanta, there was a bit of a tradition going on for hip-hop and R&B club DJs, to take the lead vocals (most often female) from ballads and remix them by putting them over high-tempo bass beats. Jermaine Dupri liked the idea of turning that concept into an actual song, and so did So So Def's A&R director, Jonathan Smith, who oversaw the Bass All-Stars compilation series. Smith happened to know Rodney Terry, as he was the promotional agent for Def Jam in Atlanta, and decided to have him produce a song for the compilation, alongside Carlton “Carl Mo” Mahone, also a popular producer in the local area. Though Smith was also involved in doing so, he could not be credited for it due to his A&R position, but Terry has confirmed that he was the executive producer on “My Boo”. They ran into a bit of a problem, though, when Akema Johnson-Day, the singer whom they had hired to do the lead vocals, didn't turn up because of conflicting recording schedules. Luckily, they had a solution on hand: Akema had already contracted a singer named Virgo Williams to do her backing vocals, and they decided to just use her. And thus, one of urban radio's biggest hits of 1996 was born.
So what do I think?
SEVEN. As I've mentioned before, there's one big factor that makes “My Boo” distinctive in the grand scheme of 90's R&B hits: the sinewy, fast-paced and intense beat, coupled with the subtle and sweet layered vocals of Virgo Williams, whose languid vocal lines drift over the hard-driving drums nicely and create a great sense of light and shade that I think is very interesting indeed. That's the only real string that “My Boo” has to its bow, but it's a good strong string. Well, that and its chorus, which has a nice catchy melody, and though the lyrics are a bit cheesy, that undulating melody that combines extended harmonized phrases and quick staccato solo vocal parts gets them into your head effectively. Virgo's got a nice voice too, well able to express sincere devotion and the bliss of her relationship without sounding too corny about it, and possessing a good ability to layer her high harmonies and a solid midrange tone that slides nicely in between those rattling hi-hats. However, this song could have scored better, were it not for some noticeable faults. It's clearly made a bit on the cheap, with ringing synth patches that sound like they came from a ballad from about half a decade earlier, and the drum sounds are kind of flat and plasticky, though the 808s are still nice. Not to mention, it's kind of interesting in how minimal it is at times, but sometimes that works to its disadvantage, particularly with parts of the verses that are almost entirely unadorned. Taken altogether, that doesn't quite amount to something that I'd want to listen to in the six minutes of its full version; edited down a bit, however, and the simple joys of “My Boo” and that great invigorating chorus get their best possible chance to shine. Yeah, not really much to say here, just a nice basic R&B dancefloor bop. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.
Where Are They Now?™
The Ghost Town DJs sort of take the “one-hit wonder” tag to a new level, just like Baz Luhrmann did earlier in the rate. Because, you see, aside from Frantic, they literally never released anything else. Ever. “My Boo” was their only single.
There's some different accounts of what exactly went down there, but the upshot appears to be that it wasn't exactly by their own choice. (Most of this is coming from interviews twenty years later, most particularly a Spin one coinciding with the 20th anniversary of “My Boo”, so some of this may have to be taken with a grain of salt.) Terry recalls that he was the only one out of the Ghost Town DJs that was actually signed to So So Def, and that that caused a headache for Columbia, who distributed that label at the time. He also mentions that, at the time, Virgo was signed to “bad management”, who prevented her from working with Terry again – and to make matters worse, she was not only not signed to So So Def, she wasn't signed to Columbia or any associated record label at all. (Hence, also, why neither she nor any member of the group was in the video, which Virgo apparently didn't even know was being shot.) I believe the situation was that she was an unsigned artist at the time, but working with a production company. Put all together, that meant that, while he and Virgo had made plans to come together and continue the group, it was not possible. Smith, however, remembers things a little differently:
But the song had quite a substantial afterlife, and only came to greater prominence in the 2010's. Firstly it was through a sample in Ciara's 2013 hit “Body Party”, but much more surprising is its revival as a meme. Remember the Running Man Challenge? Y'know, that Vine meme from 2016 of people doing the Running Man dance to this song? Yeah, that caused “My Boo” to re-chart... at #27. Yes, the astute among you will notice that that's four spots higher than it first reached in 1996. The streaming era does produce some funny old anomalies sometimes. The Ghost Town DJs do appear to still exist in some form, because they have official Twitter and Instagram pages and post on them regularly, and there's links to book them too. Who exactly is involved, I cannot find out, but it appears to have been spurred by the song's revival after the Running Man Challenge, to some extent. So I'm going to call it: they can join Rick Astley in the hallowed halls of artists whose career was resurrected by a meme.
Cue Chariots of Fire.
So now, we may as well run through what happened to our various protagonists in the twenty years and counting following “My Boo”. For the most part, it's really not a lot. Virgo now uses the artist name of “Madison Bleu”. I can find very little evidence that she released any actual music of her own, either as Virgo or as Madison Bleu, though she still posts somewhat regularly on her Facebook page. Rodney Terry also fell off the map – though he had had quite a few production credits on various independent-label hip-hop and R&B singles in the decade before “My Boo”, his list of credits goes completely cold after that, if Discogs is to be believed. Carlton Mahone, on the other hand, did continue to have some success in his line of work; he had a co-production credit on at least one other bona fide smash hit, Big Boi's 2003 Hot 100 number one single “The Way You Move” (Mahone's association with the Outkast having begun three years earlier when he produced “Gangsta Shit” on Stankonia), and also produced for some other Atlanta-area rappers like Pastor Troy. However, his list of credits more or less runs dry as well in the mid-2000's, with the only other named appearances after that, again according to Discogs, being for various samples of “My Boo”. As for Jonathan Smith? Well, he's had quite a successful career of his own in the following years as an artist...
Skeet skeet, motherfucker.
Yup. You probably know Jonathan Smith better as Lil Jon. Dang, no wonder I thought “My Boo” sounded a bit like an early crunk song, huh? Funny to think that Jermaine Dupri and Lil Jon, two of the biggest producers in hip-hop for the next decade, were both working together on this one, seemingly modest little song. But then again, such is often the case with superstars – they don't always come from the places you might expect.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
Chewed up and spit out and boo'd off stage
saviodxl (4.2): Idontknowher.gif
ModeRed (4): Has no 'oomph' to it - wafts past and then is gone… (Ooh, spoooooooky.)
unnameable (5): Enjoyable enough.
Filippa (6): It’s ok.
DominoDancing (6): Fine but unimpressive. (A trio of signature Six-Point-Something type commentaries, there.)
Auntie Beryl (4.6): Another first time listen for me, this one. Man, the US and UK were poles apart in 1996. (As I realized doing some of these. But the US were spared Boyzone, so on balance, I think they probably come off better... - Ed.) *listens* Blimey, it’s dull.
yuuurei (2): Gives me a headache and the lyrics are so bland.
Empty Shoebox (4): The pitch of the voice in the chorus sounds unnaturally high, and that puts me off. (Someone who knows astrology make something up about Virgo here.)
DJHazey (3): Nice beat at least, but not really my bag.
CorgiCorgiCorgi (6): This just makes me want to listen to Ciara's Body Party. (Which is a choon, to be fair.)
Boo'd up
Ganache (8): The beat sounds like a basic Casio preset, the singing isn't great, and the production is bit shabby but dangit it somehow all comes together to be a solid bop. (Always cool when that happens. Sometimes, an album can sound like it was recorded through a soggy teabag and have Kermit the Frog on vocals, and yet turn out a classic anyway. Go figure.)
Seventeen Days (7): Yet another song that I used to hear all the time, yet I never knew the title before. Thanks, a lot, John Garabedian and Open House Party!
pop3blow2 (8): Just a solid basic bop here. Nothing more, nothing less, but needed in every era of music.
chanex (7.5): LOLOL for that background inoffensive unnoticeable jam! (Until it says BOO!, that is. Because it's a SPOOPY GHOOOOOOST WOOOOOOO)
CasuallyCrazed (7): Best version is the Mariah Angels Abortion version. (I used to play bass for Mariah Angels Abortion. We could have been huge.)
Andy French (7): I scream every time I hear this now because of the memes, but it also goes off? (See also: "All Star". Yeah, I said it.)
berserkboi (9.2): Pretty awesome actually!
iheartpoptarts (9): Yay being on plug.dj and debating over whether the neon bikini era was even a thing. (Consensus: yes.)
4Roses (10): NOW WE ARE TALKING! This song drinks from the same youth fountain as Jlo and Gwen. Timeless smash.
WowWowWowWow (10): As I continuously played and thought of this song since it first came out, I’d like to think I am at least 38% responsible for the success of the Running Man Challenge. (Nah, I'd have said it was more like 37% mate.)
əʊæ (10): The nostalgia for being 18 and hanging out with my former friend just watching Vine compilations for hours is strong with this one. (Now I just need a 90's hit to retroactively soundtrack my 18-year-old LAN parties...)
he/him
*in best Big Brother UK crowd-chant style*
Get! "Breakfast at Tiffany's"!! OUT!!!
Get! "Breakfast at Tiffany's"!! OUT!!!
she/her
Mind is blown.
For our LAN parties that would be a lot of Offspring. Some Bloodhound Gang. Unfortunately lots of Limp Bizkits and other assorted Nu Metal (which I never liked). Some German bands like Die Ärzte. Later on System of a Down was big. So...yeah...these events were as straight as you could imagine.
I mean. I MEAN.
This forum drags straight white men with guitars to hell every day, except on the one occasion it would actually come in useful.
Next one is up tomorrow, working on a following one and hoping to get it out in fairly quick succession after that. All apologies for the slow pace lately, but I have other writing commitments elsewhere - and honestly, it's been a lot better for me mentally anyhow, taking it slow and not worrying too much about a schedule.
Hint: one of those eliminations is one people have been calling for almost since the beginning... but the other hasn't been discussed much at all, really!
Hint: one of those eliminations is one people have been calling for almost since the beginning... but the other hasn't been discussed much at all, really!
And I said
what about
being a little bit taller?
34. I WISH
Average score: 6.503
Highest scores: 3 x 10 (@iheartpoptarts , @unnameable , @4Roses )
Lowest scores: 3 x 0 (@yuuurei , @Empty Shoebox , @CasuallyCrazed )
Chart positions: #8 Hot 100, #36 Radio Songs, #4 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, #2 Hot Rap Songs, #15 Rhythmic Songs
Year-End Hot 100: #58 (1995)
Who? Oh yeah, them...
I think that all of us here on this forum can summon up a good long list of the “standard” rap bragging topics, the ones that a lot of artists sort of default to. Having money, being a player, scoring chicks, having a cool ride, we've all heard this in enough songs to stretch from the Earth to the Moon. Now, these cliches are not something I have ever particularly minded, and there's plenty of ways to put a new spin on them, even if it's just some witty one-liners or a good flow and delivery. But as is so often the case, you can always get the public's attention by purposely playing up your aversion of these typical subjects. Enter Skee-Lo – this pint-sized rapper may have wished for a rabbit in a hat with a bat (you what mate?), but I think he probably should have wished for another hit instead...
I bet that big guy is actually a volunteer at an animal shelter or something.
Skee-Lo's birth name is Antoine Roundtree, and once again, there isn't really a great deal I can say about his backstory. He was born in Chicago, but relocated to Poughkeepsie as a child, and later to Los Angeles; a self-described “Cali kid” who fit right into the burgeoning West Coast hip-hop scene, he would start rapping and performing locally while he was in high school, and made a few independent single releases starting in 1990, which got some play on his local independent radio stations. And like many a rapper in the 90's, he also joined the Nation of Islam: and there you have it, about the only context where you could say that Skee-Lo is anything like Mos Def. He claims to have had a deal with a sub-label of Jive/RCA and performed shows with Vanilla Ice and Mellow Man Ace, but I'm not sure how verifiable that is. What is verifiable, though, is that he was a regular at the Good Life cafe, home to the major open mic event Project Blowed, where he learned how to properly structure his rhymes, started making beats for other rappers appearing there, and made a lot of connections in his local scene.Skee-Lo still liked to do things on his own, though, and he wound up turning his dissatisfactions with life as a bored college student and desires for something better into a little song called “I Wish”, writing all of the verses and the hook without any musical accompaniment at all.
Skee-Lo's experiences with basketball were not unlike my own, as it happens.
He eventually found it, though, in a horn sample from “Spinnin'”, a 1981 track from funk-jazz keyboardist Bernard Wright, which he happened to hear while listening to records during a house-cleaning session, and which immediately inspired him to turn it into the beat for his song. Actually, Skee-Lo ended up producing his entire album in his house on his own, with the intent to release it independently – after all, he was still unknown outside of Los Angeles. But eventually, he got signed to Scotti Brothers Records, who put out the album, also titled I Wish, in 1995. And all of a sudden, Skee-Lo's modest little song was blowing up all over the radio, with the accompanying clip becoming the number one video on MTV at the same time – and all while he was only 20 years old. And that's pretty much it, as far as the story goes. Me myself, I wish there was a little bit more to write here. (Actually no I don't, these goddamn things are enough of a wall of text as it is.)
So what do I think?
EIGHT. OK, I am kind of surprised by that one, because I really didn't think “I Wish” was going to be this high up for me. But there's just something about this doofy pop-rap song that's extremely difficult to dislike. For one thing, there's that chill breezy sunshiney instrumental, with its lilting strum-along guitar and keyboard lines, mock-triumphant horn fanfares driving the chorus, and some amped-up scratch work on a vocal sample that adds an element of intrigue and atmosphere to the background of the verses and the hook alike. (I miss when rap hits would incorporate funk elements like that, don't you?) The drums go surprisingly hard on it too, rather than the soft and overly pop-like rhythm tracks that tended to plague pop-rap hits around this time, making it a great call to the dance floor. Not to mention, it boasts an extremely catchy chorus, one that's easy to chant along with right from the off. Skee-Lo's got a pretty solid flow on him too, with a bouncy, jumpy quality and a cool way of syncopating his words that slips around nicely on top of the laid-back beats, always seeming like he's just on the verge of slipping off the beat but never quite doing it. What makes him work as a vocal presence, though, is not his technical abilities, but his relatable storytelling. Let's be honest, a lot of us have probably felt a bit like the lyrics of “I Wish” before, and Skee-Lo packs in plenty of solid punchlines and sharply observed detail about how he wants to live up to the player lifestyle but can never quite manage it, such that I can't help but be charmed by it. Instant summer bop right here – good stuff, and while it can't quite live up to some of the other rap songs here, “I Wish” can still definitely hold its own.
Where Are They Now?™
For a little bit, it seemed as if Skee-Lo's underdog charms might just pay off for him. Sure, the I Wish album wasn't exactly a blockbuster, falling just shy of the Top 50 even though it did go gold thanks to the one hit, while the other single “Top of the Stairs” tapped out at #12 on the Bubbling Under chart and didn't even make much of a dent on urban radio (though it did scrape into the Top 40 in the UK). But he had plenty else going on. “I Wish” earned a nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 1996 Grammys, losing out to “Gangsta's Paradise”, and while the album was one of the nominees for the inaugural awarding of Best Rap Album that year, it lost out to Naughty By Nature and Poverty's Paradise. Yes, he'd gone from being a total unknown to being up against 2Pac and Biggie, all in a single year. Skee-Lo also made a number of appearances on various movie soundtracks, and had a stint as a VJ for MTV. His hit may have had something of the whiff of novelty about it, but who knows, maybe he was in with a second chance? Maybe, like Biz Markie, he would become one of those presences that people just liked having around despite a lack of further hits?
Then he disappeared.
Farewell, we hardly knew ye...
Yep, Skee-Lo pulled a New Radicals and quietly vanished from the music scene almost immediately after his one hit – a mere five months after the album came out, he announced that he was retiring. Now, grandiose pronouncements of the next record being your final tatement are nothing new in these circles. (Are you even a rapper if you don't say “I'm retiring after this album” at least once per promotional cycle?) But with Skee-Lo, it was actually pretty serious: Sunshine Records, the parent company of Scotti Brothers, not only took credit for producing “I Wish” when he had in fact done that himself, but they also took all the royalties and profits. Despite the song's popularity, Skee-Lo didn't make a single cent off “I Wish”, and it took him half a decade of complicated legal battles for him to win the publishing rights back from Sunshine. One more time, now: Because Record Labels Are Dicks. In a situation like that, it's not surprising that he declared that he was being “treated like a slave”, and refused to record or promote any more music. To make matters worse, the Scotti Brothers catalogue was sold to Volcano Entertainment in 1997, and all the artists on the label, with the exceptions of Weird Al and Survivor (who were both moved to Volcano), were dropped. Skee-Lo was no exception.
He kept performing live all that time, but no new music would appear until all the legal red tape was cut through. Eventually, Skee-Lo would come out of retirement, releasing his second album I Can't Stop in 2000, but obviously by that point there was no expectation that he could ever score a second hit. The recording hiatus had evidently taken its toll on his mental health too, to the point where he professed to struggling with suicidal thoughts, though he eventually managed to find solace and comfort by re-dedicating himself to the Muslim faith. He would follow up with another album in 2012, on his own independent label Skeelo Musik, but he hasn't released anything since then, and seems to be more focused on living out of the spotlight and being a family man. (For the record, that album, according to an LA Weekly interview with him, apparently contains a song about Trayvon Martin! Not really what I would have expected from the “I Wish” guy, but good for him.) Skee-Lo still lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children, and as well as still performing on occasion, he is the CEO of MusicMogul Entertainment, a distributor for artists to upload and sell their music on various digital platforms including Amazon, iTunes and Spotify. He may have wished he was a baller... and you know what? I think I'd be prepared to bestow that title on him. (Sadly, being a little bit taller is probably out of the question.)
Skee-Lo with his wife in 2013. Not changed much, has he?
Oh yeah, and he also guested on a song with the former lead singer of Hollywood Undead. Now THAT is just embarrassing.
More like DOUCHE! Ha, I crack myself up sometimes.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
I wish this song would fuck off
Empty Shoebox (0):
I've heard this too may times. Thanks Beat 106 daytime. You were terrible. And then you got worse. (That's Capital Scotland now, am I correct? Well, now I know what not to tune into when I go up there, so thanks for the heads-up!)
CasuallyCrazed (0): This song triggers all the worst people of my childhood. Racket of a beat, what a horrible song.
yuuurei (0): Just 4+ minutes of some dude whining. (And interpolating Buffalo Springfield, for some reason.)
Filippa (4): I get a headache from this song but I like the chorus.
berserkboi (2.2): Not for me, gets very annoying. (*SOUND OF KLAXON EXPLODING*)
I wish this song would stay in
Auntie Beryl (8.7): Held up well, this, hasn’t it? (Indeed!)
Seventeen Days (6.5): Just like with Biz Markie, I can appreciate that Cee-Lo (And I'm like, FUCK YOU! - Ed.) decided to just have fun with this rather than taking himself too seriously. This is pretty good.
pop3blow2 (8.5): Lovable nerd rap. Basically an updated version of ‘Just A Friend’. That’s fine by me.
AshleyKerwin (9): The wiki page is interesting about how it was popular for its positive lyrics as well as its usage in a Disney Channel show. (Now there's some street cred for ya! - Ed.) I like the production.
Ganache (9): Best lyrical flow of all the rap songs in the list. And the story is fun.
ModeRed (7.5): Enjoyable. And of course now I'm humming it.
chanex (8): We stan an insecure rapper even if I'll never understand the "rabbit in the hat" part of the chorus. (Even Rap Genius doesn't seem too sure!)
DominoDancing (8): This man understands my plight. (I have one Tame Impala track that iTunes says I've listened to 64 times, I'm going to say it counts.)
unnameable (10): One of those tracks whose lyrics burn themselves into your brain. Teenage me wished like crazy for things he couldn’t have too.
WowWowWowWow (8): After all this time, I only remember the words of the chorus. So I’ll instead mention that I just learned that Skee-Lo cowrote a song for Youngstown (paging @iheartpoptarts asap). (Oh, hey, speaking of.)
iheartpoptarts (10): Still about as tall as me in heels. (Funnily enough, we don't actually know how tall Skee-Lo is, but supposedly it's about 5'4" according to the all-knowing ones at Genius.)
4Roses (10): If you don't lose your shit to this song, we can't talk. (I'd recommend a proctologist.)
what about
being a little bit taller?
34. I WISH
Average score: 6.503
Highest scores: 3 x 10 (@iheartpoptarts , @unnameable , @4Roses )
Lowest scores: 3 x 0 (@yuuurei , @Empty Shoebox , @CasuallyCrazed )
Chart positions: #8 Hot 100, #36 Radio Songs, #4 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, #2 Hot Rap Songs, #15 Rhythmic Songs
Year-End Hot 100: #58 (1995)
Who? Oh yeah, them...
I think that all of us here on this forum can summon up a good long list of the “standard” rap bragging topics, the ones that a lot of artists sort of default to. Having money, being a player, scoring chicks, having a cool ride, we've all heard this in enough songs to stretch from the Earth to the Moon. Now, these cliches are not something I have ever particularly minded, and there's plenty of ways to put a new spin on them, even if it's just some witty one-liners or a good flow and delivery. But as is so often the case, you can always get the public's attention by purposely playing up your aversion of these typical subjects. Enter Skee-Lo – this pint-sized rapper may have wished for a rabbit in a hat with a bat (you what mate?), but I think he probably should have wished for another hit instead...
I bet that big guy is actually a volunteer at an animal shelter or something.
Skee-Lo's birth name is Antoine Roundtree, and once again, there isn't really a great deal I can say about his backstory. He was born in Chicago, but relocated to Poughkeepsie as a child, and later to Los Angeles; a self-described “Cali kid” who fit right into the burgeoning West Coast hip-hop scene, he would start rapping and performing locally while he was in high school, and made a few independent single releases starting in 1990, which got some play on his local independent radio stations. And like many a rapper in the 90's, he also joined the Nation of Islam: and there you have it, about the only context where you could say that Skee-Lo is anything like Mos Def. He claims to have had a deal with a sub-label of Jive/RCA and performed shows with Vanilla Ice and Mellow Man Ace, but I'm not sure how verifiable that is. What is verifiable, though, is that he was a regular at the Good Life cafe, home to the major open mic event Project Blowed, where he learned how to properly structure his rhymes, started making beats for other rappers appearing there, and made a lot of connections in his local scene.Skee-Lo still liked to do things on his own, though, and he wound up turning his dissatisfactions with life as a bored college student and desires for something better into a little song called “I Wish”, writing all of the verses and the hook without any musical accompaniment at all.
Skee-Lo's experiences with basketball were not unlike my own, as it happens.
He eventually found it, though, in a horn sample from “Spinnin'”, a 1981 track from funk-jazz keyboardist Bernard Wright, which he happened to hear while listening to records during a house-cleaning session, and which immediately inspired him to turn it into the beat for his song. Actually, Skee-Lo ended up producing his entire album in his house on his own, with the intent to release it independently – after all, he was still unknown outside of Los Angeles. But eventually, he got signed to Scotti Brothers Records, who put out the album, also titled I Wish, in 1995. And all of a sudden, Skee-Lo's modest little song was blowing up all over the radio, with the accompanying clip becoming the number one video on MTV at the same time – and all while he was only 20 years old. And that's pretty much it, as far as the story goes. Me myself, I wish there was a little bit more to write here. (Actually no I don't, these goddamn things are enough of a wall of text as it is.)
So what do I think?
EIGHT. OK, I am kind of surprised by that one, because I really didn't think “I Wish” was going to be this high up for me. But there's just something about this doofy pop-rap song that's extremely difficult to dislike. For one thing, there's that chill breezy sunshiney instrumental, with its lilting strum-along guitar and keyboard lines, mock-triumphant horn fanfares driving the chorus, and some amped-up scratch work on a vocal sample that adds an element of intrigue and atmosphere to the background of the verses and the hook alike. (I miss when rap hits would incorporate funk elements like that, don't you?) The drums go surprisingly hard on it too, rather than the soft and overly pop-like rhythm tracks that tended to plague pop-rap hits around this time, making it a great call to the dance floor. Not to mention, it boasts an extremely catchy chorus, one that's easy to chant along with right from the off. Skee-Lo's got a pretty solid flow on him too, with a bouncy, jumpy quality and a cool way of syncopating his words that slips around nicely on top of the laid-back beats, always seeming like he's just on the verge of slipping off the beat but never quite doing it. What makes him work as a vocal presence, though, is not his technical abilities, but his relatable storytelling. Let's be honest, a lot of us have probably felt a bit like the lyrics of “I Wish” before, and Skee-Lo packs in plenty of solid punchlines and sharply observed detail about how he wants to live up to the player lifestyle but can never quite manage it, such that I can't help but be charmed by it. Instant summer bop right here – good stuff, and while it can't quite live up to some of the other rap songs here, “I Wish” can still definitely hold its own.
Where Are They Now?™
For a little bit, it seemed as if Skee-Lo's underdog charms might just pay off for him. Sure, the I Wish album wasn't exactly a blockbuster, falling just shy of the Top 50 even though it did go gold thanks to the one hit, while the other single “Top of the Stairs” tapped out at #12 on the Bubbling Under chart and didn't even make much of a dent on urban radio (though it did scrape into the Top 40 in the UK). But he had plenty else going on. “I Wish” earned a nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 1996 Grammys, losing out to “Gangsta's Paradise”, and while the album was one of the nominees for the inaugural awarding of Best Rap Album that year, it lost out to Naughty By Nature and Poverty's Paradise. Yes, he'd gone from being a total unknown to being up against 2Pac and Biggie, all in a single year. Skee-Lo also made a number of appearances on various movie soundtracks, and had a stint as a VJ for MTV. His hit may have had something of the whiff of novelty about it, but who knows, maybe he was in with a second chance? Maybe, like Biz Markie, he would become one of those presences that people just liked having around despite a lack of further hits?
Then he disappeared.
Farewell, we hardly knew ye...
Yep, Skee-Lo pulled a New Radicals and quietly vanished from the music scene almost immediately after his one hit – a mere five months after the album came out, he announced that he was retiring. Now, grandiose pronouncements of the next record being your final tatement are nothing new in these circles. (Are you even a rapper if you don't say “I'm retiring after this album” at least once per promotional cycle?) But with Skee-Lo, it was actually pretty serious: Sunshine Records, the parent company of Scotti Brothers, not only took credit for producing “I Wish” when he had in fact done that himself, but they also took all the royalties and profits. Despite the song's popularity, Skee-Lo didn't make a single cent off “I Wish”, and it took him half a decade of complicated legal battles for him to win the publishing rights back from Sunshine. One more time, now: Because Record Labels Are Dicks. In a situation like that, it's not surprising that he declared that he was being “treated like a slave”, and refused to record or promote any more music. To make matters worse, the Scotti Brothers catalogue was sold to Volcano Entertainment in 1997, and all the artists on the label, with the exceptions of Weird Al and Survivor (who were both moved to Volcano), were dropped. Skee-Lo was no exception.
He kept performing live all that time, but no new music would appear until all the legal red tape was cut through. Eventually, Skee-Lo would come out of retirement, releasing his second album I Can't Stop in 2000, but obviously by that point there was no expectation that he could ever score a second hit. The recording hiatus had evidently taken its toll on his mental health too, to the point where he professed to struggling with suicidal thoughts, though he eventually managed to find solace and comfort by re-dedicating himself to the Muslim faith. He would follow up with another album in 2012, on his own independent label Skeelo Musik, but he hasn't released anything since then, and seems to be more focused on living out of the spotlight and being a family man. (For the record, that album, according to an LA Weekly interview with him, apparently contains a song about Trayvon Martin! Not really what I would have expected from the “I Wish” guy, but good for him.) Skee-Lo still lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children, and as well as still performing on occasion, he is the CEO of MusicMogul Entertainment, a distributor for artists to upload and sell their music on various digital platforms including Amazon, iTunes and Spotify. He may have wished he was a baller... and you know what? I think I'd be prepared to bestow that title on him. (Sadly, being a little bit taller is probably out of the question.)
Skee-Lo with his wife in 2013. Not changed much, has he?
Oh yeah, and he also guested on a song with the former lead singer of Hollywood Undead. Now THAT is just embarrassing.
More like DOUCHE! Ha, I crack myself up sometimes.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
I wish this song would fuck off
Empty Shoebox (0):
I've heard this too may times. Thanks Beat 106 daytime. You were terrible. And then you got worse. (That's Capital Scotland now, am I correct? Well, now I know what not to tune into when I go up there, so thanks for the heads-up!)
CasuallyCrazed (0): This song triggers all the worst people of my childhood. Racket of a beat, what a horrible song.
yuuurei (0): Just 4+ minutes of some dude whining. (And interpolating Buffalo Springfield, for some reason.)
Filippa (4): I get a headache from this song but I like the chorus.
berserkboi (2.2): Not for me, gets very annoying. (*SOUND OF KLAXON EXPLODING*)
I wish this song would stay in
Auntie Beryl (8.7): Held up well, this, hasn’t it? (Indeed!)
Seventeen Days (6.5): Just like with Biz Markie, I can appreciate that Cee-Lo (And I'm like, FUCK YOU! - Ed.) decided to just have fun with this rather than taking himself too seriously. This is pretty good.
pop3blow2 (8.5): Lovable nerd rap. Basically an updated version of ‘Just A Friend’. That’s fine by me.
AshleyKerwin (9): The wiki page is interesting about how it was popular for its positive lyrics as well as its usage in a Disney Channel show. (Now there's some street cred for ya! - Ed.) I like the production.
Ganache (9): Best lyrical flow of all the rap songs in the list. And the story is fun.
ModeRed (7.5): Enjoyable. And of course now I'm humming it.
chanex (8): We stan an insecure rapper even if I'll never understand the "rabbit in the hat" part of the chorus. (Even Rap Genius doesn't seem too sure!)
DominoDancing (8): This man understands my plight. (I have one Tame Impala track that iTunes says I've listened to 64 times, I'm going to say it counts.)
unnameable (10): One of those tracks whose lyrics burn themselves into your brain. Teenage me wished like crazy for things he couldn’t have too.
WowWowWowWow (8): After all this time, I only remember the words of the chorus. So I’ll instead mention that I just learned that Skee-Lo cowrote a song for Youngstown (paging @iheartpoptarts asap). (Oh, hey, speaking of.)
iheartpoptarts (10): Still about as tall as me in heels. (Funnily enough, we don't actually know how tall Skee-Lo is, but supposedly it's about 5'4" according to the all-knowing ones at Genius.)
4Roses (10): If you don't lose your shit to this song, we can't talk. (I'd recommend a proctologist.)
Aw, I'm sad! I liked this song. I'm sorry he went through a lot.
That's a great write up! It really covers a lot of stuff I like about the song.
she/her
It says he's 5'8" on IMDB! Oh, internet.
I didn't even realize I misspelled Skee-Lo's name. Spell check found unemployed.
Catching up on some sleep, will get #33 up tomorrow. And yes, it will be the one that has attracted some notable detractors. One that a lot of people have said has been hanging around too long.
So, get to thinking of your personal candidates for that, people! Because some of you are about to get quite a bit of joy sparked...
So, get to thinking of your personal candidates for that, people! Because some of you are about to get quite a bit of joy sparked...