Songoftheday 1/7/21 - Slick like Rick Rick James when I hit, superfreak chicks who I don't miss...

 

 

"Avenues" - Refugee Camp All-Stars featuring Pras and Ky-Mani

from the album Money Talks, The Album (Original Soundtrack) (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 3

 

Today's song of the day comes from the "Refugee Camp All-Stars", which was an off-shoot of the hip-hop group the Fugees, who had basically disintegrated after the release of their landmark album The Score, which included their Grammy-winning remake of "Killing Me Softly". The RCAS name first appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Love Jones, with "The Sweetest Thing", which was listed as "featuring" Fugee Lauryn Hill and produced by Wyclef Jean. That song was promoted to radio in the spring of 1997, and spent a week at #2 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart, and peaked at #61 on the pop Hot 100 Airplay list. But the next time the moniker showed, it wasn't Hill, but former Fugee Wyclef Jean, who released two singles "featuring" the Refugee Camp All-Stars, with "We Trying To Stay Alive" making it to #14 at R&B and nearly making the pop Top 40 at #45 in the summer. In the fall, there was another record from Refugee All Stars, but actually was Fugee member Pras on a song from another movie, Money Talks, starring Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen. It was an interpolation of the old Eddie Grant hit from 1983, "Electric Avenue". Retitled "Avenues", it has Pras and Forte rapping original verses, while Bob Marley's son Ky-Mani sings the chorus. The result sounded like Wyclef was trying to recreate a "Puff Daddy" track, with a prominent sample dominating the record, which is mildly enjoyable if not at necessary outside familiar fodder for the film. Still, the choice of song was genius, and at least they keep the reggae vibe in their in spirit...

"Avenues" became the sole top-40 pop hit under the "Refugee Camp All-Stars" name in October of 1997. The single also climbed to #28 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Norway (#2), New Zealand (#4), Sweden (#7), and Belgium (#7F/#32W). The soundtrack to Money Talks reached the top-40 on the Billboard 200 sales chart at #37, while cresting at #6 on the R&B-specific distillation of the list. It would be the last chart appearance of the "Refugee Camp All-Stars", and the Fugees reunited for a single in 2005.

(4/10)

Up tomorrow: A incendiary rock group thrusts on to chart for the first time.