Songoftheday 11/28/22 -Could it be my baggy jeans or my gold teeth, that make me different from ya'll...
"I'm A Thug" - Trick Daddy
from the album Thugs Are Us (2001)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #17 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song comes from Maurice Young, a rapper who records under the moniker Trick Daddy.
He grew up on the mean streets of Miami, the son of a broken home that
fell into dealing drugs and violence that led Young to be in prison by
the time he was twenty years old. But seeing potential in his rapping
skills, label head Ted Lucas signed Trick Daddy (at the time going by
"Trick Daddy Dollars") to his Slip-N-Slide Records. His debut album, Based On A True Story,
came out in 1997, with a couple cuts featuring rapper J.T. Money, who
would himself make this series before Young did. The record made Billboard magazine's R&B Albums chart at #59.
For Trick Daddy's next record, Thugs Are Us,
he took a turn away from the hardcore rap he was doing for a try at the
mainstream with a party record aimed for the sports crowd, "Take It To Da House". The club record that samples KC & The Sunshine Band's Saturday Night Fever song "Boogie Shoes" made the R&B Singles and Rap Singles top-40 at #23 and #20 respectively, but the single stopped right at the halfway mark of #50 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop list.
Dropping the "Dollars" from his alias, Trick Daddy returned a year later with his sophomore release www.thug.com. The record did much better, reaching the top-40 on the Billboard 200
sales tally at #30 while making the top ten on the R&B Albums list
at #7, spending over a year on the latter and selling over a
half-million copies. A big chunk of its success was due to the single "Nann"
(originally "Nann Ni**a"), featuring label mate female rapper Trina,
which hit the R&B Singles top-40 at #23 while placing on the Billboard Hot 100 at #62. It also climbed to #3 on the Rap Singles chart, his career high.
With
that single and album doing well, Slip-N-Slide was able to transfer
distribution from the indie Warlock Records to the big-league Atlantic
for Trick Daddy's third disc Book Of Thugs: Chapter AK Verse 47. The set also made the Billboard 200 top-40 at #26, and the R&B Albums top ten at #8, and selling a half million as well. The single pulled from the record "Shut Up",
which also featured Trina along with rapper Duece Poppito and C.O.,
landed his second top-40 R&B hit at #26, as well as getting on the
Hot 100 at #83.
The second single pulled from the record was "I'm A Thug", written by Trick Daddy with producer Adam "Righteous Funk Boogie" Duggins and Rafe Van Hoy. The song is a tribute to his incarcerated friend Buddy Roe. He claims to try to say that people are profiled for what they look like or where they're from, but by the end pretty much trashes that, lashing out to the police (well, they deserve it) to the hideous line of "Fuck the family of the victim". Dude, you lost us there. Also, the addition of a chipper children's choir to sing the "I'm A Thug" chorus is kind of lame. But somehow it caught on with his audience, and Trick Daddy found himself with his first crossover hit...
"I'm A Thug" reached the top 20 on Billboard's Hot 100 in October of 2001, while landing his first top ten hit on their R&B Singles chart at #8 and getting to #16 on the Rap Songs list. On the radio, the song went to #7 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart and #10 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. The Thugs Are Us album, released in March of that year, went to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list. Trick Daddy will return to the series both as a lead and a featured guest.
(1/10)
Up tomorrow: This rapper blames it on the bud.
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