Songoftheday 5/22/23 - He breaks, me down, he builds, me up, he fills, my cup, I like, it rough...

 

 

"Addictive" - Truth Hurts featuring Rakim

from the album Truthfully Speaking (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song comes from Shari Watson, who records under the moniker Truth Hurts. Born in St. Louis, she got her break when she was signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath label on Interscope Records. With her connections through Dre, Watson sang backup on tracks on Busta Rhymes and Eminem's group D-12 as well as acted in a few high-profile movies before releasing her debut album Truthfully Speaking in the summer of 2002. The lead single from the set was "Truthfully Speaking", which featured rapper Rakim (William Griffin), who was half of the iconic duo Eric B. & Rakim.  They had four albums in the late 80's/early 90's including one, their debut Paid In Full, which sold over a million copies and it still lauded as one of the best rap albums of all time. However that critical and album success didn't translate to success on the radio - their only hit as a lead artist came in 1992 when their soundtrack contribution "Juice (Know The Ledge)" popped on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 at #96. (They did better on Billboard's R&B chart, scoring seven top-40 hits with "Don't Sweat The Technique" going as high as #14.) But as a featured guest, the pair landed in the pop top ten in the summer of 1989 on Jody Watley's "Friends". With that hit, it was the first time a pop record featuring rappers made the Hot 100 top ten.

Eric B. & Rakim had split in 1992 and went on to solo careers, with Rakim releasing The 18th Letter in 1997. That album topped Billboard's R&B Albums chart, and made it to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, selling over a half-million copies. But the single from the set, "Guess Who's Back", wasn't released commercially in the U.S., and ended up at #22 on the R&B Airplay chart, although it was a top-40 hit in the United Kingdom at #32. 

But no matter his chart record, Rakim was a highly respected name in hip-hop, and having him as a guest on Truth Hurts' debut single was a big deal. "Addictive" was written by Stephen "Static Major" Garrett and producer DJ Quik (David Blake) along with Rakim doing his verse, but the song was built on a foundation from a sample of a song from the 1981 Indian "Bollywood" movie Jyoti, "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai", written and performed by Lata Mangeshkar. Here is Lata's original...

 

 For "Addictive", Garrett and DJ Quik took that beat and added lyrics about being involved with a rough man on the streets, but the words cut deeper than the usual cliches in the genre (thank Static Major for that). Watson's voice holds command over the groove, while Rakim's verse about being the ruffneck in question fits in perfectly. Coupled with the interesting beat, and the single stood out, and became Truth Hurts' first and by far biggest hit...

"Addictive" made Billboard magazine's Hot 100's top ten in June of 2002, while spending three weeks at #2 on their R&B singles chart. On the radio, the song peaked at #34 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, and #6 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single was also a big hit, reaching the top ten in the United Kingdom (#3), the Netherlands (#3), Switzerland (#3), Greece (#3), France (#5), Belgium (#6 Wallonia/#7 Flanders), Denmark (#7), Portugal (#7), and Germany (#9). Truth Hurts' debut album, Truthfully Speaking, which came out in June as the single was cresting, came in at #5 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #4 on the R&B Albums list.

But all this success came at a price. It seems DJ Quik (or some say Dr. Dre) never cleared the sample of "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai", and the copyright holders sued. A judged ruled that the record must be labeled with the writing credit to Mangeshkar, along with monies in royalties owed. This derailed the promotion of her album, and by the time her follow-up single "The Truth" came out, even R. Kelly writing and producing the track couldn't help (and probably hurt since his legal troubles were going into high gear), and the song stalled at #47 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart. 

Watson left Aftermath and was picked up by Pookie Records, run by R&B artist Raphael Saadiq. A sophomore album, Ready Now, arrived in 2003, but spent a solitary week at #173 on the Billboard 200 and #46 on the R&B Albums list. With no singles making the charts, this would be Truth Hurts' final time on the charts. Since then she's popped up a few times with new singles, most recently "Cheated" in 2022. But as a whole Truth Hurts fell into that "glorious one hit wonder" tag that Adina Howard got into a decade prior.

 

As for Rakim, he also has been quiet from the music world, releasing only one more solo album in 2009, The Seventh Seal. However, Eric B and Rakim toured together in 2018.

(7/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Truth Hurts and Rakim appearing on The Tonight Show...

and lastly, at the BET Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards...

Up tomorrow: this neo-soul singer is only part insane.