Songoftheday 7/2/21 -Did anybody see you coming to my house last night? When I got your message on my beeper that you wanna do everything I like...

 

 

"My Little Secret" - Xscape

from the album Traces Of My Lipstick (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song of the day comes from the female R&B vocal group Xscape, who had landed their fourth top ten pop hit in the spring of 1998 with the lead single from their third album "The Arms Of The One Who Loves You".  Their follow-up to that hit would be the cheaters anthem "My Little Secret". Written by group member LaTocha Scott with producer Jermaine Dupri and his right-hand man Manuel Seal Jr., the song is done in the perspective of someone not only not ashamed of their actions, but almost glorifying in it, as they recount how they do it in the room where his girlfriend stays. Creepy. She doesn't want to be anything more than a sidepiece, but strangely enough a long-running sidepiece. The material is pretty low-class, but their voices (they all share a moment in the spotlight) bring it up a bit, aided by background vocals from Jagged Edge. Nevertheless, the 90's was a cheater's paradise all around in R&B music, and Xscape found themselves with their final big hit as lead artists...

"My Little Secret" scored Xscape their fifth top ten hit, and sixth top-40 song, in October of 1998. However it only spent a scant six weeks in the top-40, propped by sales of the retail single which had remixes. The song was a much bigger success on urban stations, spending a week at #2 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. 

A third offering from Traces Of My Lipstick, the lush ballad "Softest Place On Earth", was a definite upgrade, co-written and produced by R&B singer Joe, but it stalled down at #28 on the R&B chart, and only "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #111. 

In 2000, the group appeared on the chart one last time as featured chorus singers on rapper Lil Bow Bow's first hit "Bounce With Me", which topped the R&B chart for a week at went to #20 on the pop Hot 100.  Shortly after that, Xscape split with Kandi Burriss and LaTocha Scott going on to pursue solo careers. Scott made the top-40 as a guest on rapper Trick Daddy's #40 R&B hit "Thug Holiday", while Burriss did a bit better, releasing two major-label albums, with a handful of R&B hits, one of them which will be an upcoming SOTD. 

After Scott's appearance on the reality show R&B Divas: Atlanta, and Cottle's own series with husband T.I. on The Family Hustle, and most notable Burriss' turn on the Real Housewives of Atlanta, the four reunited to tour as a group again, and released an EP of new material, Here For It, in 2017. From that disc the single "Memory Lane" hit #18 on Billboard's Adult R&B radio chart. 

(4/10)

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Here's the group performing live at the Apollo in 1998 promoting the single..

Next up, on their reunion tour in 2018...

And lastly, on the Mother's Day edition of Verzuz in 2021..

Up tomorrow: New Jack King invites you along.