Songoftheday 3/3/21 - Here's how it goes used to see you when I went to the store, always watch you play ball from my bedroom window...

 

 

"All My Love" - Queen Pen

from the album My Melody (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak; #28 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song of the day comes from rapper Queen Pen, who grew up Lynise Walters in Brooklyn in the 1970s. Discovered by producer/musician/singer Teddy Riley of the new jack swing group Blackstreet, Walters made a cameo (albeit uncredited) on the remix to that act's #1 hit "No Diggity" in the fall of 1996. Signed to Riley's vanity label Lil Man, she released her first single "Man Behind The Music" featuring Riley a year later. That song nearly made the R&B top-40 at #47, while landing her first pop Hot 100 showing at #84. It even did much better overseas, going to #15 in New Zealand, and in the UK, where it peaked at #38. But that track seemed to give more time to Riley and his Blackstreet crew than necessary, and she was getting more underground whispers about her album track "Girlfriend" featuring Me'Shell Ndegeocello, which cast her in an ambiguously lesbian light (I mean, if 29 year old me knew about it, it was pretty well-known). The song which sampled Me'Shell's previous song "If That's Your Boyfriend" turning the gender around, and with Ndegeocello's sexuality already known, it became attached to Queen Pen's persona. And honestly, that track was way better than what was released. For the follow-up, Pen turned to another artist with vague sexuality, Luther Vandross, to anchor "All My Love". Using Luther's classic "Never Too Much" very liberally, with Blackstreet's Eric Williams singing the chorus pretty much intact, the single was way more palatable for mainstream radio, and of course became her biggest success. The record was written by Walters and Riley with an up and coming Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z...

"All My Love" became Queen Pen's first and only top-40 pop hit in February of 1998. The song also made it to #17 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, while stopping at #11 on their Rap Singles list. Internationally, the single went all the way to #1 in New Zealand for four weeks, while almost making the top ten in Britain at #11. Her debut album My Melody peaked at #78 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, while cresting at #13 on the R&B-specific list.

Queen Pen's third single from My Melody was "Party Ain't A Party", which sampled obscure Earth, Wind, & Fire track "On Your Face". With Jay-Z's hand in the writing as well as featured guests Nutta Butta, Markell Riley from Wreckx-N-Effect, Jesse West, and Teddy Riley, the song scored a second R&B top-40 hit at #26, while placing at #74 on the pop Hot 100. Meanwhile, another cut from the record, "It's True" featuring Chico Debarge, became a decent international hit, going to #4 in New Zealand and #24 in the UK (that one sampled Spandau Ballet's "True").

It took four long years for Walters to return with her sophomore disc Conversations With Queen, albeit having the single remix of "It's True" with Debarge on it. While the album made it to #134 on the Billboard 200 and #31 on the R&B list, none of the songs made any impression on American radio, and since then, she retired from the hip-hop game to write books.

(6/10)

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Here's Queen Pen, Eric Williams, and Teddy Riley performing "All My Love" on Showtime At The Apollo...

Up tomorrow: Yonkers rapper get the Puffy bounce with a fly question.