Songoftheday 8/1/20 - Would you stop scheming and trying to look hard, I'll get my bodyguard you'll get that booty scarred...
"Cold Rock A Party" - MC Lyte
from the album Bad As I Wanna B (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15
Today's song of the day comes from rapper MC Lyte, who had scored the biggest hit of her career with the lead single from her fifth album, "Keep On Keepin' On", in the summer of 1996. She also appeared on R&B group Xscape's single "Can't Hang", which stopped halfway up the pop Hot 100. Later that summer, the record company promoted the album track "Everyday" to R&B radio without releasing a single, and it got some notice, reaching #44 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart, while it was a minor British hit at #81. So for the third release they got smart and went back to releasing a physical single with alternate versions, this time for the song "Cold Rock A Party". Written by Lyte and Missy Elliott with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs building production on top of an upfront sample of Diana Ross' disco nugget "Upside Down", the rapper found herself with another mainstream radio success...
"Cold Rock A Party" became MC Lyte's third, and so far most recent, top-40 pop hit in February of 1997. The song also climbed to #5 on Billboard's R&B chart, while topping their Rap Singles list for two weeks. Internationally, the single topped the singles chart in New Zealand for two weeks, and peaked at #6 in Sweden. It also reached the top-40 in Canada (#11), Belgium (#12F), the UK (#15), Germany (#15), Finland (#15), Iceland (#15), Switzerland (#22), France (#33), and the Netherlands (#36).
Lyte returned in 1998 with her next album Seven & Seven, however somehow American urban and mainstream airwaves pretty much ignored it. However the single "It's All Yours" featuring singer Gina Thompson managed to make the top-40 in the UK at #36. With the album stopping down at #71 on the R&B albums list (not making the main Billboard 200 at all), Lyte and her record company parted ways. In 2003, she reemerged with an indie album, Da Undaground Heat, Vol. 1, that also nicked the R&B albums list at #95 but did score the rapper a second Grammy nomination for Best Female Rap Performance for "Ride With Me", losing out to Missy Elliott for her "Work It" single. She also guested on British singer Gemma Fox's single "Girlfriend's Story", which reached #38 in the UK in 2004. Since then, she's been away from the forefront, only releasing a vinyl set titled Legend for Record Day 2015.
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And here's MC Lyte performing "Cold Rock A Party" live in 2018...
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