Songoftheday 10/25/20 - Our lifestyles be close-captioned addicted to fatal attractions, pictures of actions be played back in the midst of mashin'...

 

 

"Smile" - Scarface featuring 2Pac & Johnny P

from the album The Untouchable (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song of the day comes from rapper Brad "Scarface" Jordan, who had scored his first top-40 pop hit away from his group the Geto Boys in the beginning of 1995 with "I Seen A Man Die".  Two years later, Scarface returned with his fourth solo album The Untouchable. The lead single was a song he recorded with 2Pac Shakur, who was murdered in the fall of that year. "Smile", also featuring singer Johnny P on the chorus, was written by Scarface, 2Pac, and producer Mike Dean, and reworked the S.O.S. Band's Top 5 R&B hit from 1983 "Tell Me If You Still Care". The result, with his melodic sample and 2Pac's posthumous popularity still strong, gave Scarface his biggest pop hit...

"Smile" became Scarface's second and so far last top-40 pop hit in July of 1997. The song went all the way to #4 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, his sole solo top ten placing, while getting to #2 on their Rap Singles list. The Untouchable album was also Scarface's only #1 record on the Billboard 200 sales chart. But surprisingly with that success, no other singles from the record reached the pop or R&B charts in America, though "Game Over", featuring Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Too Short landed the rapper his only top-40 hit in the UK at #34. 

Scarface's next three albums reached the top ten on the sales chart, but out of them only "Guess Who's Back", featuring Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel, got any notice, making the R&B top-40 at #28 and the pop Hot 100 at #79 in 2002. His most recent R&B singles showing was "High Powered" in 2008, which slipped in at #90.  Besides still recording with the Geto Boys, his most recent regular studio release was 2015's Deeply Rooted, which peaked at #3 on the R&B albums tally and #11 on the Billboard 200.

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And here's Scarface performing "Smile" with guitar in concert (the song starts a minute in)...

Up tomorrow: Christian singer likes bug smooches.