Songoftheday 11/4/22 - I met so many men it's like they're all the same, my appetite for lovin' is now my hunger pain...
"I'm Real" - Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule
from the albums J. Lo (Special Edition) (2001) & J to the L--O! The Remixes (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (five weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 29
Today's song is from Jennifer Lopez, whose sophomore album J. Lo had already spun off two hit singles with "Love Don't Cost A Thing" and "Play". The third single chosen from the set was the laid back "I'm Real". The original album and single version was written by Lopez with producers Cory Rooney, Troy Oliver, and Leshan Lewis, and used a sample of the Japanese electronic progressive jazz group Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Firecracker" from 1979. That was a scandal itself because that was a track that Mariah Carey was in the process of using for a future album of her own, but ex-husband Tommy Mottola, who ran Lopez's label, rushed this out to stifle Mariah's (it worked, sadly). As for this version, it was a basic dance-pop track where Lopez is having a conversation with a lover where she asserts her honesty as well as her down-to-earth street cred, saying he's got nothing to worry about with her. The result, in both the record and the music video, was like a clear aping of Janet Jackson but more airy (in the melody and her voice)...
But like "Play" before it, urban radio was not having any of this beigery, and the song was at risk of going the same route and stalling outside the top ten, which clearly was a goal of Mottola and Lopez. So Rooney, Oliver, and Lewis brought in one of the bigger crossover rap artists at the time, Ja Rule, for the usual turn-of-the-millennium "remix" to the track to suit R&B stations and pump up interest in the album. He was on fire after scoring three top-40 hits from his last album with "Put It On Me" making the top ten. But instead of just tacking on a cameo verse, Ja Rule remade the track as a new song entirely. Not only was the "Firecracker" sample scrapped for samples of Rick James' "Mary Jane" and the Mary Jane Girls' (Rick's spin-off girl group) "All Night Long", the lyrics are completely different. And not even in the "part 2" kind of way. In this version J. Lo and Ja Rule play off the Bonnie and Clyde street-level lovers who are there for each other despite what the others think. There was major controversy over the use of the "n-word" in Jennifer's verses that would never have flown today, but at the time Ja Rule did sorta rule the radio, so she was given a pass. Apart from those issues, it was definitely an improvement over the original (the radio version bleeped that out). This time, both pop and urban radio embraced the new "Murder Remix" song, and it returned her to the top of the chart. A new music video was filmed for this take of course, necessary with the lyric change...
With the remix dominating radio, the new "I'm Real" returned Jennifer to the #1 spot for the second time, and gave Ja Rule his first, in September of 2001 (it was the infamous #1 at the time of the 9/11 attacks on America). As for urban radio, the trick worked, as the title became her biggest hit on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, spending five weeks at #2. On the radio, the song spent two weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay list for a week, and reigned for a full ten weeks on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the Netherlands (#2), France (#3), Australia (#3), New Zealand (#3), the United Kingdom (#4), Norway (#4), Belgium (#5 Wallonia/#8 Flanders), Canada (#6), Switzerland (#6), Sweden (#8), and Denmark (#8). It also hit the top-40 in Germany (#11), Ireland (#13), Italy (#16), Finland (#16), Romania (#20), Austria (#25), and Poland (#27). The new version was on the re-release of J. Lo, and in February of 2002 it would be on her J to the L--O! The Remixes album, which spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200, going on to sell over a million copies. However, the disparity in using both completely different versions to make the chart rankings in America would cause Billboard
magazine to eventually change the rules to disallow this chicanery. But
not before Jennifer and Ja Rule have another (and bigger) go at it.
Original: (5/10) Murder Remix: (6/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
She also did the "Firecracker" version on her Let's Get Loud concert DVD in 2003...
At the MTV Video Music Awards in 2001, Lopez and Ja Rule performed the Murder Remix...
This weekend I'll be back with my new single/album roundups (sorry I missed last week, was away on vacation).
On Monday: A striking newcomer tumbles into a Grammy-dominating hit.
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