Songoftheday 7/31/22 - Hair nappy but I'm happy pocket full of dough, from the C-O representin' So So...

 

 

"Bow Wow (That's My Name)" - Lil' Bow Wow

from the album Beware Of Dog (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from young rapper Lil' Bow Wow, aka Shad Moss, whose debut single "Bounce With Me" had topped Billboard magazine's Rap Singles chart and made the Hot 100 top-20 in the autumn of 2000.  The second single from his debut Beware Of Dog album was the declarative "Bow Wow (That's My Name)". Produced by Jermaine "JD" Dupri, whose label the album was released on, the song was written by Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, and Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus, whose verse on the album was removed for the single/radio version though not on the music video, over a sample of George Clinton's classic "Atomic Dog". The record has Bow Wow boasted about himself (name-checking his birthplace of Columbus and label So So Def), as well as bringing up G-Shock, Tha Dogg Pound, 2Pac, and the Notorious B.I.G., and telling the girls to put his poster next to the Backstreet Boys. He even gets a subtle shot at Eminem with the "my name is..." before one of the choruses. It's a simplistic party record, and Snoop Dogg's verse tries to give the original some street cred, but in the end it's just a Kidz Bop version of G-funk without the hoes and violence...

"Bow Wow (What's My Name)" became Lil Bow Wow's second top-40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 2001. The song topped Billboard's Rap Singles chart for four weeks, while making it to #9 on their R&B Singles list. Internationally, the single made the top ten in France (#2), The Netherlands (#2), Switzerland (#4), Belgium (#4W/#9F), Sweden (#5), the UK (#6), Australia (#6), Norway (#7), and Germany (#9).

The follow-up single, "Puppy Love", featured R&B vocal group Jagged Edge, and doesn't interpolate the 60s pop hit but sampled LL Cool J. It climbed to #27 on the R&B Singles chart, and stopped at #75 on the pop Hot 100 (it's my favorite of the bunch). The fourth and final release from the debut, "Ghetto Girls", also had Jagged Edge singing backup but not with a name credit on the single. It scored a fourth top-40 R&B hit at #40, while getting to #91 on the pop Hot 100. Bow Wow will be back to the series, but without the "Lil'". 

(4/10)

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Here's Lil' Bow Wow and Jermaine Dupri doing the song on Showtime At The Apollo...

and lastly, live in concert...

Up tomorrow: Dance nerd hits it big in Chicago, no doubt.