Songoftheday 8/23/19 -He greets his father with his hands out rehabilitated slightly, glad to be the man's child...
from the album The Diary (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3
Today's song of the day comes from rapper Scarface, who has been part of the hip-hop group the Geto Boys since their 1989 album Grip It! On That Other Level. With them he scored two top-40 pop hits in the early 1990s with "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" and "Six Feet Deep". In the meantime, the man born Brad Jordan also was recording solo work for Rap-A-Lot, the label he shared with the group. His debut solo album, Mr. Scarface Is Back, was released in 1991, with the lead single "Mr. Scarface" making his first solo chart appearance on Billboard magazine's Rap Singles chart at #8. The follow-up, "A Minute To Pray and a Second To Die", landed his first minor hit on their R&B singles chart, peaking at #69.
In 1993, Scarface returned with his sophomore solo effort The World Is Yours. The first release from the set, "Let Me Roll", put the rapper on Billboard's pop Hot 100 chart for the first time at #87, while topping out at #50 on the R&B list and #2 on the Rap Singles chart (a high shared by three records).
The following fall, the rapper came back with his third solo record The Diary. His first to reach the top ten at #2, the record's first single, "I Seen A Man Die" - reworked for the single title to be "I Never Seen A Man Cry (I Seen A Man Die)" became Scarface's first big pop success. Built on a sample of Julie Driscoll's cover of "Light My Fire", the pessimistic track details a man getting out of prison only to end up back in the business...
"I Never Seen A Man Cry (Till I Seen A Man Die)" became Scarface's first top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in January of 1995. The song also climbed to #15 on Billboard's R&B chart, while peaking at #2 on their Rap Singles chart. Internationally, the single was his first hit in the UK at #55. The second single from The Diary, "Hand Of The Dead Body (aka People Don't Believe)" featuring rapper Ice Cube, got to #9 on the Rap Singles chart, #39 on the R&B list, and #74 on the pop Hot 100, while in the UK the single just missed the top-40 at #41.
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Here's Scarface performing the track live on TV...
...and in concert in California in 2017...
Up tomorrow: Architectural R&B trio are asking intentions.
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