Songoftheday 9/26/22 - They call me Lil P i represent the cp3, Calliope ya heard me straight from New Orleans...

 

 

"My Baby" - Lil' Romeo

from the album Lil' Romeo (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song comes from rapper Romeo Miller, who originally recorded under the name Lil' Romeo. The son of Percy "Master P" Miller, the head of the No Limit Records franchise, and Sonya C, a rapper in Master P's supergroup TRU. Naturally, with them along with uncles Silkk The Shocker and C-Murder, Romeo entered the rap game, and did it quite young, brought on No Limit sub-label Soulja at an absurdly young age, and releasing his debut album Lil' Romeo when he was just eleven. The lead single from the record was "My Baby", which his dad must've paid bank to get the sample of the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back" to use as a backdrop (the songwriting credits only include the writers of that song). The lyrics have the usual boasting, with Romeo dropping names of his famous relatives, before getting to his own prepubescent "prowess", though the line "got grown women, wantin to be in my life" after boasting of his Bugs Bunny chain is a bit skeevy, as is the use of the Michael Jackson impersonator in "whiteface". I mean, it works definitely as a "Kidz Bop"-style children's distillation of hip-hop, and the female chorus vocals (supposedly by an uncredited "Ms. Peaches") are sweet, but I can't put my head around an adult rap fan getting into this. But the combination of that instantly identifiable hook and his obvious lack of need for censorship (he's eleven) made it a fit for pop radio, but Master P definitely used his promotional muscle to ensure that this was "accepted" in the hip-hop world as well. In the end it became Lil' Romeo's first and biggest by far hit...

 

"My Baby" made it to the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in June of 2001. The song topped Billboard's Rap Singles chart for ten weeks, as well as one week on their R&B Singles list. On the radio, the track got to #12 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in New Zealand (#33) and Australia (#38), and was a minor hit in the United Kingdom at #67. The Lil' Romeo album, released in July of that year, peaked at #6 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #5 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.

I guess the company spent their wad on "My Baby", for when it came to the follow-up, "The Girlies", which instead of the Jackson Five sample cribbed from underground rap icon  Marley Marl for an attempted tie-in to the Latin Explosion, stalled down at #63 on the R&B Singles chart. 

In 2002, Lil' Romeo was double-billed on a single from newcomer Corey (who now goes by "Bando Jonez"). The song, "Hush Lil' Lady", made the R&B top-40 at #37, while becoming Romeo's second and so-far last appearance on the Hot 100 at #63. 

After the original No Limit went under, Master P revived the name under the Universal Records-distributed "New No Limit" imprint, where Lil' Romeo released his sophomore effort Game Time at the close of 2002. The lead single from the album, "2-Way", which featured his dad and uncle Silkk The Shocker, stopped at #65 on the R&B Singles chart. The second release, "True Love", completely stiffed, but was notable for featuring a young Solange Knowles, sister of Beyonce and three years older than Romeo. The Game Time album did manage to get into the Billboard 200 top-40 at #33, and R&B Albums top-10 at #10. 

New No Limit switched distributors to the indie Koch by the time of Romeo's third album RomeoLand, which entered the Billboard 200 at #70. Since then, Romeo, who switched things to just go by Romeo Miller, had his music career dimmed in favor of acting and going to school, where he played basketball for USC for a couple of years. Since 2018, Miller has been the host of the MTV "love reality" series Ex On The Beach. He also released an album independently as Romeo Miller in 2019, Hidden Treasure. This year he was on a one-off single with Hey Choppi, "Ride". 

(5/10)

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Here's Lil' Romeo performing his hit on the Michael Jackson celebration concert in Madison Square Garden in 2001..
 

Up tomorrow: This devilish rock band gets to the open road.