Songoftheday 3/1/23 - Just the way I like it hunnies turnin' somethin', I got a seat up in the cut and I'm burnin' somethin'...

 

 

"Lights, Camera, Action!" - Mr. Cheeks

from the album John P. Kelly (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 20

 

Today's song comes from rapper Terrance Kelly, who records under the moniker Mr. Cheeks. Born and raised in New York City, Mr. Cheeks was one of the members of the rap group Lost Boyz, who had two top ten albums and a top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart with the single "Renee" in the spring of 1996. Kelly left the group at the turn of the century to pursue a solo career, and was signed to Universal Records. There he released his first solo set John P. Kelly, with the lead single "Lights, Camera, Action!" coming out in the summer of 2001. Written by Kelly and produced by Roosevelt "Bink" Harrell III, who helmed the Lost Boyz' second album, the song is laid over a sample of the proto-disco single "Keep On Truckin'" by Eddie Kendricks (of the Temptations). That record provided the groove that would make "Lights" accessible to the radio, which helped the fact that after bleeping out the curses it's hard to discern what he's saying other than throwing out the titles of others' hits like "Ms. Jackson" and "Thong Song". It's basically a club party song geared towards the stripper crowd, which is where the music video is set. In return, Mr. Cheeks had a bigger hit than anything the Lost Boyz ever put out...

"Lights, Camera, Action!" made the top-20 on the Hot 100 in March of 2002, while spending a week at #1 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart with 46 weeks on that list. His biggest success was on the Rap Songs chart, where the single spent two months (eight weeks) at #1. On the radio, the song peaked at #22 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart and #6 on the R&B/Hip-Hop radio list. The John P. Kelly album, released in October of 2001, went to #32 on the Billboard 200 sales tally.

The second single from the album was "Friday Night", another party track that featured R&B singer Horace Brown. Despite the sample of disco classic "Fly, Robin, Fly" to grab the ear, the single stalled all the way down at #87 on the R&B Singles chart. 

Cheeks returned in 2003 with a second album on Universal, Back Again!. However, despite the first single "Crush On You" spending 20 weeks on the R&B chart, and featured Mario Winans, who had been on P. Diddy's big hit "I Need A Girl (Part Two)", it stalled under the halfway mark on that list at #52. The album stopped at #75 on the Billboard 200, and Mr. Cheeks left Universal shortly after. 

Since then, the rapper has released a bunch of albums on independent labels, most recently two named for his biggest hit (even though never contained a version of it). But he will be back on this series as a featured rapper.

(3/10)

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There was a radio remix of the track done with Missy Elliott, P. Diddy, and Petey Pablo which definitely spurred sales of the single...

And lastly, Mr. Cheeks performing live at Showtime At The Apollo in 2002...

Up tomorrow: Nu-metal band finalizes it big.