Songoftheday 5/19/21 - Let my pants sag down to the floor, really do it matter as long as I score?
"Lookin' At Me" - Mase featuring Puff Daddy
from the album Harlem World (1997)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from the rapper Mase (Mason Betha), whose debut album Harlem World had already scored a pair of top ten pop hits with "Feel So Good" and "What You Want" with Total, the latter of which made the top tier in the spring of 1998. Also, album track "24 Hrs. To Live" featuring the Lox, Black Rob, and DMX got enough urban radio spins to place on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart for a week at #72, and even got a music video. The third retail single from the record would be "Lookin' At Me", which had a cameo from Mase's mentor Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. ("24 Hrs" was the B-side of the single but somehow didn't get listed on the charts.) Surprisingly for a Diddy track (though the production was from the Neptunes, where Pharrell Williams came) there's no big identifiable sample grounding, but rather a looser beat (Pharrell's forte), as Mase flicks off the critics and "haters" and those questioning his wealth, before segueing into coming on to a groupie while he's with his wife on vacay...
"Lookin' At Me" became Mase's third, and so-far last top ten pop hit as a lead artist in September of 1998. The song also rose to #8 on Billboard's R&B chart, while spending ten weeks at #1 on their Rap Singles chart, the most since Diddy's own "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", which Mase was featured on, did a dozen weeks at the top. Internationally, the single went to #18 in New Zealand.
(4/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the video for the "B-Side", "24 Hrs. To Live", which blipped on to the R&B Airplay chart at #72....
and lastly, Mase performing "Lookin' At Me" and Diddy track "Been Around The World" at the Essence Festival in 2019...
Up tomorrow: Miami bass rappers go to the dogs.
Comments