Songoftheday 10/26/21 - Try it's all we have to do it's up to me and you, to make this special love last forever more...

 

 

"Tell Me It's Real" - K-Ci & JoJo

from the album It's Real (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song comes from R&B brother duo K-Ci & JoJo, whose first album after leaving the group Jodeci, Love Always, scored a top-40 hit with "You Bring Me Up", before going all the way to #1 on the American pop chart in the spring of 1998 with "All My Life". At the beginning of the following year, the siblings returned with a contribution to the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy movie Life. "Life", written by R. Kelly, rose to #15 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, spending 25 weeks on the list, but stalled down at #60 on Billboard's Hot 100 pop tally (it was honestly better than the track that did do well, Maxwell's "Fortunate"). Nevertheless, the song would appear on the pair's second album It's Real. That spring, they released the second single from the set, "Tell Me It's Real". Written by JoJo with producer Rory Bennett, the record tries to recreate another "All My Life" with another slow love ballad filled will platitudes and promises ready-made for wooing a partner, though this one is more unsure of the direction of the relationship, and seemed more pleading than celebrating. JoJo's higher voice is much more suited for this (albeit with a fuckton of Zapp-like Autotune), until K-Ci drives it home in the bridge...

 

 "Tell Me It's Real" became K-Ci and JoJo's second top ten hit on the Hot 100 as a duo in August of 1999. The song spent three weeks at #2 on Billboard's R&B chart, and got to #5 on their Rhythmic radio format list. Internationally, the single peaked at #4 in New Zealand, and made the top-40 in the Netherlands (#13) and the UK, where it originally went to #40, but a year later made it to #16 because of new dance remixes of the song. The It's Real album, released in June of 1999, rose to #8 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. 

Despite the success of "It's Real", neither of the two follow-up singles, the cheater-catching "Fee Fie Fo Fum" or the acoustic "Girl", made it into the pop or R&B charts (though the latter popped on to the Rhythmic radio list). But K-Ci & JoJo will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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There was an alternate version of the music video released with a different fashion vibe over the same plot...

 

 

Here's the brothers performing the song on Live At The Apollo in 1999...

 

In 2000, a "UK garage" uptempo remixed version by Club Asylum helped the song come back to the British singles chart getting its best rank in the top-20...

 

 

and lastly, in concert at the House Of Blues in 1999...

 

 

 

Up tomorrow: Country vocal powerhouse gives up arguing.