Songoftheday 8/3/22 - Girl it feels like you and I been mourning together, inseparable we chose pain over pleasure...

 

 

"Put It On Me" - Ja Rule featuring Lil' Mo & Vita

from the albums Rule 3:36 (2000) and The Fast and the Furious (Original Soundtrack) (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 22

 

Today's song comes from Ja Rule, who just missed the pop top ten with his second single to make the top-40, "Between Me And You", in the autumn of 2000. A second "hype" track from the rapper's sophomore album, "6 Feet Underground", reached #25 on Billboard magazine's Rap Singles chart later that year. The second "official" single from the record was the melodic hip-hop of "Put It On Me". The original album version had Ja Rule paired with female rapper Vita (Lavita Raynor), an actress who was signed to Ja Rule's label Murder Inc.. A remix of the track, which eventually appeared on the soundtrack to the movie The Fast And The Furious (the first one) in 2001, also included singer/rapper Cynthia "Lil' Mo" Loving singing the radio-friendly chorus with Ja Rule. Lil' Mo had previously appeared on Missy Elliott's top ten pop hit "Hot Boyz" in the beginning of 2000. Later that year, she was a featured artist on R&B vocal group Ideal's "Whatever", which missed the top-40 by a handful of notches. She also debuted her own single "Ta Da" that fall, which went to #21 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart and #95 on the Hot 100. 

In "Put It On Me", written by Ja Rule with producer Irving "Irv Gotti" Lorenzo along with Taheem Crocker and Paul Walcott, Ja Rule and Vita trade verses about being there for each other, with Rule talking about the support he gives her, and Vita first mentioning the bling before going on how she's there when he gets in trouble. That's all well and good, and has been done before (though "Put In On Me" does succeed in favoring the emotional over the financial support), but it's Lil Mo and Ja Rule singing together in the chorus that pulls this together. His gruff vocals match her tough but more soulful counterpart to make this a much better crossover try then the sing-song graininess of "Between Me & You". In return, Ja Rule got his biggest hit so far at the time. The music video plays up the Bonnie & Clyde romance, though with both Lil' Mo and Vita in there it can be a little confusing...

 

 "Put It On Me" became the first top ten hit for Ja Rule and Vita, and the second for Lil' Mo, on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 2001. The song spent two weeks at #2 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, while getting to #11 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, "Put In On Me" topped the dance-oriented Rhythmic format chart for four weeks, while getting to #24 on the Mainstream Top-40 list. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Put It On Me" was nominated for Best Duo/Group Rap Performance, valiantly losing to the superior "Ms Jackson" by Outkast.

 

Ja Rule would appear in the first The Fast And The Furious movie, with the "Put It On Me" single remix on the soundtrack, which went to #7 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #5 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. As for the Rule 3:36 album, both that and Ja Rule will be back to the series, as well as Lil' Mo and Vita (the latter as part of "The Inc.").

(7/10)

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Here's Ja Rule, Lil Mo, and Vita performing at a concert for the BET Network in 2000...

and lastly, the trio on the Verzuz show last year...

Up tomorrow: Monomyned soul singer has a speech impediment.