Songoftheday 5/6/20 - Why you take a chunk and go up for a dunk? An' I never been a punk but your girl calls me hunk...

"It's All The Way Live (Now)" - Coolio
from the album Eddie (Original Soundtrack) (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6

Today's song of the day comes from rapper Coolio, whose Gangsta's Paradise album was a big success, scoring three top-40 pop hits with "Too Hot", the top ten "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)", and the Grammy-winning #1 smash "Gangsta's Paradise". In the spring of 1996 he returned with a song he recorded for the soundtrack to the basketball movie Eddie starring Whoopi Goldberg. "It's All The Way Live (Now)", like his breakthrough hit "Fantastic Voyage", is named for and samples heavily a track from the Ohio funk band Lakeside. "It's All The Way Live" was that group's first hit, going to #4 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart in 1978. Coolio recruited the band to perform on the music video of the song...

"It's All The Way Live (Now)" became Coolio's fifth top-40 pop hit in June of 1996. The song also climbed to #47 on Billboard's R&B chart, while making the top ten on the Rap Singles list at #9. Internationally, the single peaked at #6 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in Sweden (#33), the UK (#34), and the Netherlands (#34). The Eddie soundtrack, which would go on to land a second top-40 pop hit from Dru Hill, topped out at #119 on the albums sales chart.

Up tomorrow: A new soul group does one thing by the numbers and scores their first hit.