Songoftheday 8/14/20 - Peace and blessings manifest with every lesson learned, if your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well-earned...

 

 

"On & On" - Erykah Badu

from the album Baduizm (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

 

Today's song of the day comes from R&B singer/songwriter Erykah Badu, who grew up Erica Wright in Dallas, Texas, where she was immersed in the arts since a young child by her mother and schooling, including a stint at the famous Grambling University in Louisiana. On the strength of a demo record, she was signed to Universal Records under the Kedar imprint. Her debut single "On & On" was released at the end of 1996, a couple of months before her first album Baduizm. Written by Erykah with JaBorn Jamal, and produced by the singer with Madukwu Chinwah, the Afrocentric jazz-soul piece finally brought a female voice to the neo-soul world dominated by men such as D'Angelo and Maxwell, and it sounded like nothing on radio at the time...

 

 

 "On & On" became Badu's first top-40 pop hit, almost reaching the top ten in February of 1997. The song topped Billboard magazine's R&B chart for two weeks. Internationally, the single matched its American success in the UK at #12, while just missing the top-40 in New Zealand at #44. The Baduizm album, released when the single peaked, got to #2 on the Billboard 200 sales chart (and #1 on the R&B specific list) and went on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1998, Badu was nominated in four categories, winning Best R&B Album and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. She lost Best New Artist to indie-pop singer/songwriter Paula Cole, and Best R&B Song to R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly". 

Erykah's follow-up to "On & On" was "Next Lifetime", which was promoted to radio without being released as a single commercially (to boost album sales, natch). With it she topped the R&B Airplay chart for two weeks, while making it to #61 on the pop Hot 100 Airplay component of the chart. It did grant her her first top-40 hit in New Zealand at #40, while peaking at #30 in Britain. A third radio-only release, "Otherside Of The Game", rose to #14 on the R&B Airplay list. 

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And here's Erykah performing the song on Late Show with David Letterman in 1997...

Up tomorrow: R&B vocal group play like the Three Bears.