Robbed Hit of the Week 2/18/13 - Mtume's "Juicy Fruit"...

Mtume - "Juicy Fruit"
from the album Juicy Fruit (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #45

This week's "robbed hit" is by the New York R&B group Mtume, who are named for its leader, James Mtume, who played percussion with Miles Davis. They released their debut album in 1977, and a year later from their sophomore set they scored their first R&B hit, "Just Funnin'", which scraped the chart at #93. Two years later, Mtume put out In Search Of The Rainbow Seekers, which would venture more into disco territory, and give them a top-40 R&B hit with "Give It On Up (If You Want To)". Also that same year, James and band member Reggie Lucas would write and produce Stephanie Mills' Grammy-winning top-10 pop hit "Never Knew Love Like This Before".

In 1982, Mtume released their fourth album, Juicy Fruit, which brought the band back to the African-style funk rhythms they began with, and ended up with their biggest hit ever, the title track...

While "Juicy Fruit" became one of the biggest soul hits of the year, topping the R&B chart for eight weeks in 1983, the song stalled right under the top-40 on the pop chart (which was leaning heavily to new wave at the time). It also managed to make the top-30 on the dance chart, which probably wouldn't happen now with club music's overreliance on a fast BPM.

Mtume would go on to have a few more R&B hits like the #2 "You, Me & He" in 1984, but this was as close as they came to the pop top-40 as a band. However, Reggie Lucas would go on to produce most of the debut album by an up and coming dance singer named Madonna. In fact, check out the beginning of "Borderline" and compare it to "Never Knew Love Like This Before". Mind blown.

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"Juicy Fruit" would go on to be a "staple" in the sampling world, from it's classic backbeat to the melody.... first in 1988 classic rap group Stetsasonic sampled the drumbeat in the background of their top-40 R&B jam "Talkin' All That Jazz"...