Songoftheday 1/5/23 - I ain't choose to rhyme rhymin' chose me, so I hit the track runnin' like a nosebleed...

 

 

"Ugly" - Bubba Sparxxx

from the album Dark Days, Bright Nights (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song comes from rapper Bubba Sparxxx, who grew up Warren Mathis in small town Georgia. Getting discovered in nearby Athens, "Bubba" was signed to local indie Beat Club Records, where he released his debut album Dark Days, Bright Nights which was eventually picked up by major Interscope Records after it got some notice regionally. The lead single from the set, "Ugly", picked up where Kid Rock left off after he decided to become a singer. But this time, Sparxxx was an actual southerner that didn't fake being working class while residing in daddy's mansion like Kid Rock did. "Ugly" off the bat had the distinction of being produced by Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, who wrote the single with Missy Elliott and Mathis. With a single remix that used the same Indian Bhangra sample that powered Missy's "Get Ur Freak On", it's a party record not unlike much of what was coming from the Atlanta area at the time, most notably Ludacris, but as much as I wanted to hate this, he does put in a decent enough (if breathy) delivery on this groove Timbaland throws down. He's boasting skills without being materialistically bragging, and lines like "Let's be honest none of us will ever date a model so let's just cut it loose ignore the repercussions" is pretty damn refreshing in the genre. Well, the involvement of Elliott and Mosley definitely helped on the exposure (as well as the remixes similarity to "Get Ur Freak On") and Bubba found himself the first true "hillbilly rapper" with a hit, predicting an entire genre that would happen decades later. The music video is a spectacle of a redneck circus, leading to the football chant of a chorus (which doesn't have to do with personal looks, but ugly like the equivalent of Nelly's "Hot In Here" (which will be coming shortly)...

 

 "Ugly" became Bubba's breakthrough hit, reaching the pop top 20 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in November of 2000, while peaking at #6 on their R&B Singles chart (the highest he would get in his career) as well as on the Rap Songs list. On the radio, the song went to #6 on the R&B/Hip-hop Airplay chart, and #8 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Belgium (#4 Wallonia/#40 Flanders) and the United Kingdom (#7), which reaching the top-40 in the Netherlands (#18) and Norway (#20). The Dark Days, Bright Nights album, released in October of that year, spent a week at #3 on the Billboard 200 sales tally (his best showing), and #3 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums list, going on to sell over a half-million copies. 

Bubba's follow-up single, "Lovely", which sampled Isaac Hayes' theme from Shaft, was also produced by Timbaland, but while it scored a second top-40 hit in the UK at #24, the single stalled down at #77 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart in the States. But no fret, Bubba will return to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's Sparxxx performing the song live in 2016...

Up tomorrow: A patriotic country song from 1984 gets brought out of mothballs thanks to 9/11.