Songoftheday 6/8/21 - Top dollar with the gold flea collar dippin' in my blue Impala...
"Still A G Thang" - Snoop Dogg
from the album Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song of the day comes from rapper Calvin Broadus, aka Snoop Dogg, who had one of the biggest artist debuts of the 1990s with his Doggystyle album, which topped the albums chart and scored a pair of top ten pop hits with "What's My Name?" and "Gin & Juice". However, after a three year lapse before his second album Tha Doggfather, despite the record again hitting #1, between the chaos at Death Row Records and his own legal troubles the promotion was problematic, with none of the singles from the album even placing on the pop Hot 100 in Billboard magazine, and only one, "Snoop's Upside Your Head", getting to #37 on the R&B Airplay list. Surprisingly, though, those troubles didn't carry overseas, with three tracks from Tha Doggfather making the top-40 in the UK, with the aforementioned song getting to #12. Also, his collaboration with the late 2Pac Shakur, "Wanted Dead or Alive" from the Gridlock'd soundtrack, went to #3 in New Zealand and #16 in the UK, but stiffed completely in the States. In fact, the only time he graced the pop top-40 during the period after "Gin & Juice" was when his appearance on cousin Nate Dogg's "Never Leave Me Alone" which grazed the top-40 in the fall of 1996.
Snoop had to wait out his contract with Death Row to expire to finally move out of that label, where he signed with Master P's No Limit Records, which was dominating the hip-hop game at the time with its CEO's records. Dropping the extra "Doggy" from his stage name, he released his third studio album Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told in the summer of 1998. The lead single, "Still A G Thang", was meant to be a continuation of the song "Nothin' But A G Thang" from Dr. Dre that he featured on back in 1993. Written by Snoop and produced by Meech Wells, the record rides on the same groove at that former hit, with the rapper doing his bragging and boasting but in a smooth, assured voice, while finding time to call out the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair, and not in a pleasant way...
"Still A G Thang" returned Snoop Dogg to the pop top-40 in September of 1998. The single climbed to #16 on Billboard's R&B chart, while getting to #3 on their Rap Singles list. However, since No Limit was a heavy hitter in the States only, with no international business plan, the single was only a hit here in America. The Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told album, released in July of that year, was Snoop's third consecutive #1 album on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to move over two million copies.
A second single from the album, "Woof", which featured a then-unknown rappers Mystikal and Fiend, rose to #31 on the R&B chart in Billboard, and #62 on the pop Hot 100.
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Snoop Dogg actually went on the Donny & Marie talk show to promote the single, and it made for the most random TV ever...
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