Songoftheday 7/31/23 - There's somethin' wrong we can't stay still, I've been drankin' and bustin' too and I been thankin' of bustin' you...

 

 

"Move B***h" - Ludacris with Mystikal & Infamous 2.0

from the album Word Of Mouf (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 15

 

Today's song comes from rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, whose second major-label album Word Of Mouf had already scored four top-40 crossover hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "Area Codes" with Nate Dogg, "Rollout (My Business)", "Welcome To Atlanta" with Jermaine Dupri (a hidden track at the end of Ludacris' album), and "Saturday (Ooh Ooh!)" with Sleepy Brown.  

The fifth and final single from the record would end up being its biggest success. "Move B***h" was written by producer Craig "KLC" Lawson with Ludacris and the single's two featured rappers. Mystikal (aka Michael Tyler) had just come off his third top-40 pop hit "Bouncin' Back (Bumpin' Me Against The Wall)" in the beginning of 2002. The other guest was fellow Georgian Bobby Sandimanie, who at the time was going under the monikers Infamous 2-0 or I-20. I-20 had appeared on Ludacris' previous two albumsm and was signed to the rapper's Disturbing Tha Peace label. The lyrics, in which each get a verse, pull no punches, getting in the face of haters and triflin' women, (though I-20 unfortunately had to throw the F-slur at the end that's thankfully edited out on the radio version). That knocks it down a notch, but this road rage anthem and marching band pacing (a thing in the early 2000s) caught like fire in the record stores, landing all three their first top ten "pop" hit even without significant mainstream radio airplay...

"Move B***h" reached the top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 in October of 2002, while spending two weeks at #3 on their R&B Singles chart, and also got to #3 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song also hit #10 on the R&B/dance-oriented Rhythmic format. 

 

As I mentioned in the SOTD piece on Mystikal's previous hit, this would be his final time in the Hot 100 top-40. As for Infamous 2-0, he transformed to I-20 (like the local interstate) for his own debut album Self Explanatory which came out in 2004 and went to #42 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #5 on the R&B Albums list. The lead single from the record, "Break Bread", which featured Ludacris as well as rapper Bone Crusher, spent a couple of months on the R&B Singles chart with a high of #78. But right before that single, I-20 was featured on "I Like That" from rapper Houston, which was a decent pop/R&B hit and will bring him back to the series. 

And of course, Ludacris will be back many more times to the series. 

(7/10)

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Ludacris, Mystikal and I-20 took over the streets of New York performing the censored version of the track with Shawnna for the MTV Video Music Awards in 2002...

Up tomorrow: Self-righteous rockers give up the ghost.