Songoftheday 7/7/21 - Baby you sho' is somethin', see I won't, trade you for nothin'...

 

 

"Trippin'" - Total featuring Missy Elliott

from the album Kima, Keisha, & Pam (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song of the day comes from the female R&B vocal group Total, who had landed their fourth top-40 pop hit in the autumn of 1997 with their Soul Food soundtrack single "What About Us".  The trio started out the next year with their first official foray into the top ten as a featured guest on rapper Mase's single "What You Want". (They also were backup singers on LL Cool J's "Loungin'", but weren't credited on the label and the charts.) Later that year, Kima Dyson, Keisha Epps, and Pam Long returned with their sophomore studio album. The lead single, from the set dubbed from their first names, "Trippin'", like "What About Us" was written and produced by Missy Elliott and Timbaland along with Darryl Pearson. It doesn't offer much in the lyrics department, with the usual "I am so into you" promises and record label hyping, but it kicks better than a lot of the Timbaland/Elliott singles as the time, which were starting to get just a little same-samey. All three are in good, if a bit chirpy, harmony, and split vocals (albeit unevenly) between then, and Missy even gets a turn...

"Trippin'" became Total's second top ten hit, and only one as a lead artist, in January of 1999. The single spent a week at #3 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. The Kima, Keisha, & Pam album, released in October of 1998, went to #39 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in America, and #9 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.

Despite the bigger success of this single, the follow-up, "Sitting Home", stalled right under the pop top-40 at #42, while making the top ten on the R&B tally at #10. After third try "I Tried" stiffed, it would be their final lead single. They would have a handful of features on minor R&B hits, the most recent being dancehall artist Mad Lion's 2002 single "Give It To Me", which got to #96 R&B. The trio split after, reuniting in 2016 to tour.

(5/10)

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Here's Total performing "Trippin'" as well as their 1995 hit "No One Else" in concert in 2016..

Up tomorrow: Appalachian rockers herald the moonshine.