Songoftheday 5/1/22 - This you should know 'cause you had my mind blown, full of junk at the club on bump like what...
"Wifey" - Next
from the album Welcome II Nextasy (2000)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song comes from the R&B vocal trio Next, whose debut album Rated Next spun off three big crossover hits with "Butta Love", "I Still Love You", and the Billboard magazine #1 pop hit of 1998, "Too Close". In 2000, R.L Huggar and siblings Tweety and T-Low Brown returned with their sophomore effort, Welcome II Nextasy. The lead single from the record was the monogamously romantic "Wifey". Written by Huggar with producers Ed Berkeley and Keir "KayGee" Gist, the latter of the group Naughty By Nature, the single features an uncredited vocal from Cynthia Loving, aka "Lil' Mo", who was previously on Missy Elliott's top ten hit "Hot Boyz" in 1999, and will be on this series in her own right soon. A love song for the new urban era, it updates the usual romantic tropes though includes such cringy lines like "Freak but only when it comes to me". The groove is damn decent, however, and in return the group scored their second-biggest hit after "Too Close"...
"Wifey" became Next's second top ten crossover hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in September of 2000. The song was their second to top the R&B Singles chart for a single week, while getting to #14 on the older-skewing Adult R&B radio list. Internationally, the single was a top-40 hit in the UK (#19), New Zealand (#19), and Canada (#25). The Welcome II Nextasy album, released in June of that year, was their highest-charting record on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #12, and sole top ten on the R&B Albums list at #4, though it sold a fraction of their debut in the long run.
Their follow-up single, "Beauty Queen", was co-written by Tommy Barbarella from Prince's New Generation band along with Berkeley and Gist, but couldn't build on the momentum of "Wifey", stalling at #48 on the R&B Singles chart, not even touching the Hot 100. At this point Next left Arista Records.
In 2002, RL released a solo album, RL;Ements, for music business powerhouse Clive Davis' label J Records. The record made the top ten on Billboard's R&B Albums chart at #6, while getting to #53 on the Billboard 200. Two cuts from the set were minor R&B radio hits, with "Good Man" making it to #48 on the R&B Singles chart. Later that year Huggar reunited with the Brown brothers for a third Next album on the J label, The Next Episode. However the lead single from the set, "Imagine That", stopped down at #66 on the R&B Singles chart, though it got to #19 at the Adult R&B format. With the album going to #120 on the Billboard 200 and #27 on the R&B Albums list, it would be their last album together so far. They've released a smattering of singles since, most recently "Want It" in 2018, which climbed to #25 on Billboard's Adult R&B airplay chart. But the group will be back to this series as a featured artist.
(6/10)
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and lastly, in concert in London in 2019...
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