Songoftheday 10/29/21 - In the front of the club I see this girl like "Yo love", thought she said thug but she called me a scrub...

 

 

"No Pigeons" - Sporty Thievz featuring Mr. Wood$

from the album Street Cinema (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from the hip-hop trio Sporty Thievz, who came together in New York in the 1990s. Mentored by New York radio DJ Funkmaster Flex and signed to the Roc-A-Blok sublabel of Columbia's Ruffhouse label, the group released their debut album Street Cinema in 1998. Lead single "Cheapskate (You Ain't Gettin' Nada)", a diss on golddiggers, climbed to #49 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, and "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #107. The following year, R&B trio TLC scored a #1 hit with the single "No Scrubs", which poked fun at guys with no class or cash who try to get with them. In response, New York DJ Rhude and rapper Mr. Wood$ put together an "answer record" giving the man's point of view as "No Vultures", which they put on a mixtape and slipped to Flex in the hopes he would play it on his radio show on Hot 97. Instead, Flex proposed to make this a follow-up for the Sporty Thievz with new verses written by the group's Kirk Howell, Shaarod Ford, and Marlon Bryant, though allowing Mr. Wood$ to still have the last verse on the new record, now called "No Pigeons". Completely cribbing the instrumental from the TLC hit, "No Scrubs" producer Kevin "Shekspere" Briggs along with co-writers (and members of the group Xscape) Tiny Cottle and Kandi Burriss sole writing credit on the single. First blowing up on Flex's show, then becoming such a phenomenon that it was released as a single, "No Pigeons" was soon tacked on to the Street Cinema album. But the version played most on the radio, and eventually the single version and music video, lopped off Mr. Wood$' verse. That video, which low-rent tried to emulate the "No Scrubs" clip, is kind of laughable, clearly filmed in a backstreet with women hired to circle the one car they had, with onlookers not even attempted to frame out, before devolving into total misogyny. For the song, it's pretty mean-spirited, calling out hair weaves, calloused feet, and Lee press-on nails in their comeback. Nevertheless, "No Pigeons" became a huge novelty hit, in the style of the comeback records of the 1960s and 1980s...

"No Pigeons" climbed all the way into the top-20 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in July of 1999. The song also went to #5 on the R&B Single chart, while topping their Rap Singles list for a full month (four weeks). Internationally, the single peaked at #16 in the UK. The Street Cinema album, released originally in August of 1998, didn't benefit from the success of the single, and only made it to #66 on Billboard's R&B Albums chart. 

In 2000, the trio were trying to put together their next album, when Ruffhouse Records was going under business-wise. After releasing a single, "La La", which popped on to Billboard's Rap Singles chart at #35, it completely folded, leaving Sporty Thievz without a label. The following year, tragedy struck when Bryant was killed when he was hit by a drunk driver. Continuing on, Howell and Ford released two albums in 2020, What I Look Like and Fck Sporty Thievz, with the single "What I Look Like" coming out a year before to little notice.

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Here's the extended version with Mr. Wood$' verse, which originally was released on the indie AV8 label...

And lastly, the trio performing the single on the BET cable network...

Up tomorrow: Pop icon goes for Austin Powers.