Robbed hit of the week 6/18/18 - Nice & Smooth's "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow"...
from the album Ain't A Damn Thing Changed (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44
This week's "robbed hit" comes from the rap duo Nice & Smooth, who got together in the Bronx in the mid-1980s. Greg "Nice" Mays and Daryl "Smooth" Barnes released their self-titled debut album in 1989, and while that record made the R&B albums chart (#26), it failed to have a successful single. That changed with their sophomore effort Ain't A Damn Thing Changed two years later. The lead track, "Hip Hop Junkies", which samples the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You", nabbed them buzz and a top-40 R&B hit (#38). That was followed by "How To Flow", which did a bit better, going to #23 R&B. But it would be the third release from the record that would be their biggest moment. "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow" has the duo throwing verses on top of a sample of Tracy Chapman's iconic "Fast Car", and the then-new concept of a more current hit used as a major sample, along with more thoughtful lyrics about life in poor areas, got it noticed by pop radio as well...
While "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow" ended up their highest-charting R&B hit at #17, the single just missed the pop top-40 by a few notches in June of 1992. Two years later, the pair returned with a third disc, Jewel Of The Nile. The first single "Old To The New", which cribbed Three Dog Night's "Easy To Be Hard", landed at #59 on the pop chart but even missed the R&B top-40 at #43. Their last album (so far) was 1997's IV: Blazin' Hot; the title track got to #76 on the R&B chart.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Greg and Daryl performing live for TV in 1993...
and at a show in 2008 bringing "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow" and "Hip Hop Junkies"...
Comments