Songoftheday 11/6/21 - I wanna see y'all who wanna plan with me, wave your hands across the land if we family...
"Jamboree" - Naughty By Nature featuring Zhané
from the album Nineteen Naughty Nine: Nature's Fury (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song comes from the rap trio from New Jersey, Naughty By Nature, whose third album Poverty's Paradise won the first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, and spun off a top-20 pop crossover hit in the summer of 1995 with "Feel Me Flow". In 1997, the group contributed a song to the soundtrack to the movie Ride, "Mourn You Til I Join You", which was written by leader Treach about the late Tupac Shakur. The single went to #24 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, #2 on their Rap Singles list, and #51 on the Hot 100.
It would be four years, though, from Poverty's Paradise to their fourth album Nineteen Naughty Nine: Nature's Fury, during which time the act moved from Tommy Boy Records to the Arista label. The lead single from the set, "Dirt From All My Lonely", stiffed, not even making either the R&B or Rap Singles charts, "bubbling under" the former. (It deserved better.) The second release from the set, "Live Or Die", sported support from a big chunk of the No Limit Records label roster, featuring SOTD artists Master P, Silkk The Shocker, and Mystikal, along with Phiness. It did nominally better, popping in at #86 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart. (Not a fan.)
Learning from their past successes to resuscitate the record, the group put out a softer-edged party record as the third single. "Jamboree", written by the group's Treach, Vin Rock, and Kay Gee over a sample of jazz saxophonist Benny Golson's "I'm Always Dancin' To The Music", featured neo-soul duo Zhane, who had their third top-40 pop hit in the spring of 1997 with "Saturday Night" (which Kay Gee co-wrote). The sample and Zhane's sweet voices on the chorus bring a positive vibe to the record, though some of the lyrics are pretty questionable with lines like "Orgy's are automatic from back-traffic to addicts" and "Wanna come and touch her, the punani rusher like Usher" that make it easier when you're not paying attention to the words but rather the beat and the flow. The music video has the trio invading an amusement park with a throng in tow that somehow has set up a massage tent for Treach. Yeah...
"Jamboree" became Naughty By Nature's fourth top-40 crossover hit, and third to reach the top ten, in August of 1999. The song topped Billboard's Rap Singles chart for four weeks, and made it to #4 on the R&B Singles list. Internationally, the single went to #22 in New Zealand, and was a minor hit in the UK at #51. The Nature's Fury album, released in April of that year, peaked at #22 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #9 on their R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.
Despite that success, the fourth single from the album, "Holiday", didn't much notice, just missing Billboard's R&B chart by a notch, "bubbling under" at #101. It was surprising, since it was even more radio-friendly, with a smooth sample of Change's disco classic "Lover's Holiday" as its foundation.
Not long after this album, Kay Gee left the group, and Treach and Vin Rock carried on for another album on TVT Records in 2002, IIcons, which went to #15 on the Billboard 200 and #5 on the R&B Albums sales list. But while lead single "Feels Good (Don't Worry 'Bout A Thing)" featuring R&B female vocal group 3LW, which interpolated the top ten hit of the same name by Tony Toni Tone, made it to #25 on the R&B Singles chart, and topped the Rap Singles chart for five weeks, the record stalled at #53 on the crossover Hot 100, their most recent appearance on both lists. It did make the top-40 in New Zealand (#19) and Australia (#34), and was also a minor hit in the UK at #44.
Since then, aside from reuniting for one more album in 2011, Anthem Inc, which reunited the trio, the act has been active in different combos with both Kay Gee and Vin Rock at one time or another leaving. But as of now, they're back as a trio, touring the 'oldies' circuit.
(5/10)
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Next up, at the Soul Train Lady Of Soul Awards that same year...
and lastly, in concert in 2017...
Up tomorrow: This band is tentatively scheduling.
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