Songoftheday 1/20/22 - Wootay I'm tattooed and barred up medallion iced up, Rolex bezelled up and my pinky ring is platinum plus...

 

 

"Bling Bling" - B.G. featuring Baby, Turk, Mannie Fresh, Juvenile, & Lil' Wayne

from the album Chopper City In The Ghetto (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #36 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song comes from rapper B.G., who grew up as Christopher Dorsey in New Orleans in a rough childhood, getting involved with drugs after his father was murdered. Befriended by Bryan Williams, aka "Baby" and later "Birdman", who started the hip-hop label Cash Money Records, B.G. (or "Baby Gangster") dropped out of school to pursue a music career. He released his first album, Chopper City in 1996. The following summer, his second effort on the label, It's All On U, Vol. 1, popped on to Billboard magazine's R&B Albums chart at #40. Later that year, B.G. along with fellow rappers Juvenile, Lil' Wayne, and Turk, came together as "Hot Boys", and released the Get It How You Live! record, which also made the R&B Albums list at #22. Also in 1997, a second volute of It's All On U came out for B.G. solo, and it was his first to reach the Billboard 200 sales tally at #184, while climbing to #20 on the R&B Albums list. 

After that flurry of releases, both B.G. and the Hot Boys "supergroup" waited out 1998 and returned the next year first with B.G.'s solo set Chopper City In The Ghetto. A track from the album was released as B.G.'s first "commercial" single, as a 12" vinyl record. For "Bling Bling", B.G. brought along the rest of the Hot Boys as "featured", as well as Baby and Mannie Fresh who recorded together under the name Big Tymers. Each take turns doing a verse with Lil' Wayne doing the intro and "chorus", and B.G. coming in last. It's an obscenity-filled track about the high life in jewelry and clothes and cars, foreshadowing the brand porn that would dominate the genre ever since. It's crass bragging, but I have to give it to them (and producer Mannie Fresh) for riding a beat that still sounds pretty fresh, especially at the chorus...

 

 "Bling Bling" became B.G.'s first and only solo-billed hit on Billboard's pop Hot 100 in November of 1999. The song also was his sole record to make the top-40 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart at #13. while getting to #10 on their Rap Singles list. The Chopper City In The Ghetto album, released in April of that year, went to #9 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #1 on their R&B Albums chart, going on to sell over a million copies.

Cash Money didn't waste any time capitalizing on this success, and instead of promoting another single, released a Hot Boys album Guerilla Warfare in the summer of 1999. That did even better, reaching #5 on the Billboard 200 and topping the R&B Albums chart, also selling over a million. Lead single "We On Fire" went to #49 on the R&B Singles chart, following by the supergroup's biggest hit "I Need A Hot Girl", which climbed to #23 on the R&B Singles chart and made it onto the Hot 100 at #65 at the start of 2000. 

B.G.'s next solo-billed album, Checkmate, was released in the fall of 2000, and got to #21 on the Billboard 200, and #5 on the R&B albums list. However, the biggest single from the set, "I Know" with Lil' Wayne, stalled down at #86 on the R&B Singles chart. After this, B.G. severed ties with Cash Money over financial issues, with the label releasing a third Hot Boys album, Let 'Em Burn, from previously recorded material; still the set went to #14 on the Billboard 200 and #3 on the R&B Albums tally. 

The rapper went indie, starting his own label Chopper City. His first record Livin' Legend came after a three-year drought in 2003, and didn't have anybody from the Cash Money heyday. Still, the set made the Billboard 200 top-40 also at #21, while single "Hottest Of The Hot" was a minor R&B hit at #74. Since then, B.G. has released six more album, with 2006's The Heart Of Tha Streetz Vol. 2 (I Am What I Am) landing his highest rank on the Billboard 200 at #6. A track from the set, "Move Around", reunited him with Mannie Fresh, went to #52 on the R&B chart and "bubbled under" the crossover Hot 100 at #113, and probably was the big reason it did so well. His most recent album, Too Hood 2 Be Hollywood, came out in 2009, and went to #77 on the Billboard 200 and #14 on the R&B Albums list, with single "My Hood" again with Mannie Fresh his latest R&B singles hit at #70. 

That year was when everything went really south for B.G..A month before the release of Hollywood, he was arrested and convicted for gun charges, which put the rapper in prison for fourteen years. As of last year, he was denied release from incarceration. B.G. won't be back to the series, but Baby, Juvenile, and most conspicuously Lil' Wayne will.

(2/10)

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Here's the collective doing "Bling Bling" live in concert in 2000...

Up tomorrow: This young group wants a sleepover.