Songoftheday 11/24/19 - Her boyfriend's tall and he plays ball, so how am I gonna compete with that?
from the album I Wish (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's song of the day comes from rapper Skee-Lo, who grew up Antoine Roundtree originally from Chicago, but eventually relocated to Los Angeles. His first single was "I Wish", the title track from his debut album. Based on a sample of Bernard Wright's jazz-funk track "Spinnin'", the self-mocking track had a flow that gained a lot of fans...
"I Wish" became Skee-Lo's first and only top-40 pop hit in September of 1995. The song also rose to #8 on the Rap Singles chart, while hitting #33 on the R&B chart in Billboard magazine. Internationally, the single was a top ten hit in Sweden (#4), Norway (#4), Finland (#5), the Netherlands (#6), and Switzerland (#10). At the 1996 Grammy Awards, "I Wish" was nominated for best male rap performance, which went to Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", while the I Wish album got the Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, losing out to Naughty By Nature's Poverty's Paradise. The second single from Skee-Lo's debut was "Top Of The Stairs", which was featured in the Wesley Snipes movie Money Train. While it became his second British top-40 hit at #38, it stalled down at #73 on Billboard's R&B chart and only "bubbled under" their Hot 100 pop chart at #112. Because of disputes with his record company, Skee-Lo faded from sight in the music scene, only emerging in 2001 with the indie EP I Can't Stop, but by that time radio and stores let him go. His most recent album came in 2012 with the self-promoted Fresh Ideas.
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Here's Skee-Lo performing "I Wish" on Conan O'Brien...
and lastly it looks like in someone's backyard in 2012...
Finally, here's a clip of Skee-Lo on Sway's radio show talking about "I Wish"...
Up tomorrow: Neo-soul newcomer is singing about the sticky weed, not the mocha chick.
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