Songoftheday 5/3/17 - I'm glad I put this tape in I'm just goin' cruise down the road, look at the stars in the sky and drift off into the sweet memory's that I have...

"Have You Seen Her" - MC Hammer
from the album Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's song of the day comes from Oakland rapper MC Hammer, who had hit the top ten on the American pop chart in the summer of 1990 with his Rick James-infused "U Can't Touch This". His follow-up single would be a "cover" of the soul classic "Have You Seen Her". Originally recorded by the Chi-Lites during the doo-wop revival of the late 60s/early 70s, the song, written by their lead singer Eugene Record along with R&B artist Barbara Acklin ("Love Makes A Woman"), this version climbed to #1 on the R&B chart, and #3 on the pop Hot 100 in 1971...

MC Hammer riffed off that spoken word intro to convert the track into one to fit on mainstream radio in the hip-hop era...

"Have You Seen Her" became Hammer's second top 10 pop hit in September of 1990. The record also climbed to #4 on Billboard's R&B chart, and even crossed over to #42 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, one of the first rap records to make this list. Internationally, the song reached the top ten in the Netherlands (#2), New Zealand (#4), Finland (#6), the UK (#8), and Germany (#10).

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


British singer Maria Lawson sampled "Have You Seen Her" for her 2006 single "Sleepwalking", which climbed to #20 on the UK Chart...

And finally, Hammer live in Japan ("Have You Seen Her" is at the 4:01 mark)...

Up tomorrow: Virginian piano man gets over the bridge.