Songoftheday 4/28/21 - Girl I won't get next to you you know I don't like sweatin' you, but something 'bout the way you make me feel...

 

 

"Shorty (You Keep Playin' With My Mind)" - Imajin featuring Keith Murray

from the album Imajin (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song of the day comes from the R&B group Imajin, who came together in the late 1990's in New York City under the mentorship of producer Bert Price. Jamal Hampton, Talib Kareem, Olamide Faison, and John Fitch, who played their own instruments, were signed to Jive Records. They released their first single, "Shorty (You Keep Playing With My Mind)". The record featured rapper Keith Murray, who by that time had quietly racked up three top-40 albums on the Billboard 200 sales chart, and had his debut single "The Most Beautifulest Thing In The World" climb to #50 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart, and #19 on their R&B list. His first album of the same name peaked at #34 and went on to sell over a half million copies. So while he isn't the biggest of names (for a rare rapper that GOES by his real name), he had a decent following, and isn't a showy personality to overpower the young men on their first time one. The song, written by producers Ron Lawrence and Deric Angelette along with Tijuan Frampton and the verses from Murray, samples Peter Brown's stellar disco-funk throwdown "Dance With Me". While the groove in unmistakable, it doesn't dominate the record like say, a Puff Daddy production, and the men trade off vocals seamlessly as they make their case that they're over the games with their respective loves...

"Shorty" became both Imajin and Keith Murray's first and only top-40 pop hit in July of 1998. The song also climbed to #20 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single was a top-40 hit in New Zealand (#16) and the UK (#22). Their debut and only album Imajin, released late in October of 1998, failed to make the pop or R&B album charts. 

The group's next single, "No Doubt", had Olamide's actor brother Donald Faison of Scrubs fame in the music video, but stalled down at #72 on the R&B chart, missing the pop Hot 100 altogether. It was a minor hit in the UK (#42) and New Zealand (#49), and deserved much better than that. After a feature on rapper Baby DC's "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll", which chart on America's R&B chart (#91) and Britain's singles list (#45) in 1999, a late release on third single from Imajin, "Flava", popped on to the British chart in 2000 at #64. 

Despite the modest success, the group never came back with another album, they have a collection on previously unreleased material up on Spotify. Meanwhile, Murray returned to the R&B top-40 three more times, once as a lead-billed artist on the collaboration single "Fatty Girl" with Ludacris and LL Cool J from an album put out by the clothing manufacturer FUBU, which peaked there at #32 in 2001. His most recent solo album Rap-Murr-Phobia (The Fear Of Real Hip-Hop), was back in 2007, and from it the single "Nobody Do It Better" with Junior & Tyrese got to #65 on the R&B chart in Billboard. He also was in the rap supergroup Def Squad with Erick Sermon and Redman. Their 1998 album El Nino topped Billboard's R&B Albums chart, got to #2 on the Billboard 200 sales list, and a year prior the trio covered the hip-hop classic "Rapper's Delight" for a compilation of remakes that went to #22 on Billboard's R&B Airplay chart.

(7/10)

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Here's Imajin appearing on Soul Train to promote the single...

Up tomorrow: A new overweight lover in the house proclaims his faithfulness.