Songoftheday 6/20/22 - Rollin' through the hood just stopped by to say what's up, and let you know your baby boy ain't doing so tough...

 

 

"I Wish" - R. Kelly

from the album TP-2.com (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 17

 

Today's song comes from R&B singer/songwriter/producer/sex convict R. Kelly, whose third solo album R. had spun off a quartet of top-40 pop crossovers hits with "If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time", "Did You Ever Think", "When A Woman's Fed Up", and the #1 hit duet with Celine Dion "I'm Your Angel". Along with soundtrack top ten hits "I Believe I Could Fly" and "Gotham City" which also were included on the double-disc album, as well as hit collaboration with Puff Daddy, "Satisfy You", which made it to #2 on the pop chart, Kelly's star power was at its peak at the turn of the millennium. In the summer of 2000, he contributed a pair of songs to the soundtrack to the reboot of the blaxploitation movie Shaft starring Samuel Jackson. "Bad Man" wasn't heavily promoted, yet still made it to #30 on Billboard magazine's R&B Songs chart, and "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #118. 

Later that fall, Kelly returned with his next studio album, TP-2.com, a take on his breakthrough album 12 Play. The lead single from the record was "I Wish", written and produced by Kelly. In it he addresses a lost loved one, reminiscing on past times and mournful that he can't share in his fame right then. The verses border on delusions of grandeur, especially when he goes off on "For me to save the world I don't understand how did I become the leader of a billion men?"; the uplifting yet emotional chorus is really the best part of the record. Kelly has said this was for his late mother but as a whole its broad reach and vagueness dilutes the message somehow. Nevertheless, he was riding high, and urban radio swarmed to this, eventually crossing over to the mainstream pop charts. The music video tries to amp the sorrow quotient set partly at a funeral, but that switched to a bling-filled white room with Kelly and his crew donning t-shirts hawking the album, which is hilariously crass...

"I Wish" reached the Billboard Hot 100 top-20 in January of 2001. The song returned Kelly to #1 on the R&B Singles chart for the first time in four years, spending two weeks there, while getting to #2 on the older-skewing Adult R&B radio list and #11 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic Airplay format. Internationally, the single made the top ten in the Netherlands (#6), Belgium (#7F/#36W), and Germany (#10), and hit the top-40 in the UK (#12), Switzerland (#29), and France (#40). The TP-2.com album, released in November of 2000, became Kelly second #1 on the Billboard 200, and also spent three weeks on top of their R&B Albums sales tally, going on to sell over four million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "I Wish" was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, losing to D'Angelo for his "Untitled (How Does It Feel)". Both Kelly and the album will return to the series.

(5/10)

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There was a remix done for the song, titled "I Wish (To The Homies That We Lost)" featuring rappers Boo & Gotti. It's not a "dance remix" but a more lush production...

and lastly, a shortened version of the song in concert...

Up tomorrow: Country singer means well.