Songoftheday 1/15/21 - I'm gonna drink my whiskey I'm gonna have my man, I know you got nothing to say...

 

 

"Legend Of A Cowgirl" - Imani Coppola

from the album Chupacabra (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #36 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter Imani Coppola. No relation to the famous director Francis Ford or his family, Imani grew up in Long Island before leaving school to persue a music career. Signed to a record deal and coming under the wing of producer Michael Mangini, who previous worked with jazz-rap pioneers Digible Planets, Imani released her debut album Chupacabra in 1997. The lead single from the set was "Legend Of A Cowgirl", an alt-groove record in the Beck/Neneh Cherry vein that revolves around a sample of Donovan's 60's flower-power hit "Sunshine Superman". Spewing high-velocity rhymes which go off in a million tangents, the record draws you in with the chorus, which sort of taps into the vagabond vibe by use of the "cowgirl" tag. It was catchy enough from the sample to get Imani on the radio and VH1 and became her shining moment...

 

 "Legend Of A Cowgirl" became Imani's first and sole hit as a lead artist on the pop chart, reaching the top-40 in October of 1997. The song also climbed to #24 on Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 radio chart. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Canada (#14), New Zealand (#20), the UK (#32), and Iceland (#35). The Chucacabra album failed to hit the albums sales chart, and no other single from the set made any impact, and she was dropped from Columbia Records shortly after. In 2001, Coppola reappeared as a featured guest on the Baha Men's single "You All Dat" from their Who Let The Dogs Out? album, which was partly produced by Mangini. That song actually got Imani a big international hit, going to #8 in Australia, #14 in the UK, #21 in New Zealand, and #26 in Ireland, while in America it spent a month on the pop Hot 100, peaking at #94. Since then Imani has released a series of independently distributed albums. The most recent, The Protagonist, came out in 2019.

(7/10)

Here she is performing the song live on Jools Holland, sounding much more organic and funkier that on the record...

and lastly, for French TV...

Up tomorrow: Female rapper wants a fight.