Songoftheday 9/10/21 - Baby, we've been freakin' from dusk to dawn, and I'm still not ready to go home...

 

 

"I'm Not Ready" - Keith Sweat

from the album Still In The Game (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from R&B singer and master of the new jack swing genre Keith Sweat, whose single "Come and Get With Me" with Snoop Dogg, the lead single from his sixth studio album Still In The Game, reached the top-20 on the American pop chart in the autumn of 1998.  His follow-up from the set would be "I'm Ready", produced by Sweat, who co-wrote the track with Joe Little and Willie Jones. Eschewing his wheelhouse again to chase the then-current trend of the shuffle-beat "booty call" R&B that was so prevalent on the songs of the time that it's hard to discern them from each other (heck, I just had one yesterday as SOTD that I forgot as well). On the plus side, Sweat can frame himself in sound pretty well, as he sings about not wanting to end a seemingly fleeting affair. And at least the video has some adorbs huskies in them...

"I'm Not Ready" did a quick sprint into Billboard magazine's pop top-40, helped mostly by sales of the single which had a remix on it, in March of 1999. It would be Keith's last placing on the Hot 100 so far. The song also climbed to #12 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single was a minor hit in New Zealand (#45) and the UK (#53). 

Sweat returned in 2000 with Didn't See Me Coming, which was his first to not go platinum (a million records shipped), but still made it to #16 on the Billboard 200 sales tally with a half million sold. But by the millennium, radio was growing colder; lead single "I'll Trade (A Million Kisses)" with rapper Lil' Mo stopped at #36 on Billboard's R&B chart. After another record in 2002, Rebirth, which didn't even put a single in the R&B top-40, two live releases, and a best-of that made the Billboard 200 top-40 at #31, Sweat and Elektra parted ways.

 

It took a long six years for Keith to re-emerge with another studio record, this time on ATCO Records, Just Me. The set topped the R&B Albums chart, and went to #10 on the Billboard 200, but again radio was cool, with first single "Suga Suga Suga" stalled at #36 on the R&B Singles list again. Since then Sweat has moved over to the Universal imprint Kedar Records, and has released four more studio albums, with the most recent being Playing For Keeps in 2018. His most recent R&B radio hit came in 2012 with "Knew It All Along" with New Edition's Johnny Gill and the late Gerald Levert, which went to #85. He's had better luck on the older-skewing "Adult R&B" format, topping that radio chart in 2016 with "Good Love" from his Dress To Impress record, and again in 2019 with his most recent hit "Boomerang" from Playing For Keeps. 

(4/10)

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A remix of the track with female rapper Strings was the catalyst for the sales of the single that put "I'm Not Ready" on the pop charts...

 

 Up tomorrow: Jumpy rapper changes gears for an assessment and a new musical direction.