Songoftheday 8/25/23 - I assume I'm so into you, 'cause even before we hit the bedroom I was friends wit' you...
"Trade It All (Part 2)" - Fabolous featuring P. Diddy & Jagged Edge
from the albums Barbershop (Original Soundtrack) (2002) and Street Dreams (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8
Today's song comes from rapper Fabolous (real name Johnathan Jackson), whose debut album Ghetto Fabolous had spun off two top-40 crossover hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "Can't Deny It" and "Young'n (Holla Back)". In the spring of 2002, Fabolous released a third single from the debut, "Trade It All", which started to chart before getting overhauled with a "part 2" rework for the movie Barbershop starring rappers Ice Cube and Eve as well as future TV star Anthony Anderson. The song was written by the rapper with producers Ernesto "DJ Clue" Shaw and Ken "Duro" Ifill, along with two members of the R&B vocal group Jagged Edge, brothers Brandan and Brian Casey. Jagged Edge, who had landed in the pop top-3 in 2001 with "Where The Party At", appeared on both the original and reworked versions, but the "part 2" added rapper/mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, who had accomplished a resurgence in his career with back to back top-40 hits with Part One and Part Two of "I Need A Girl". Both of those featured rapper Chauncey Hawkins, aka Loon, who also has a writing credit here (I presume he ghost-wrote Diddy's part). As opposed to his earlier singles, Fabolous plays the romantic here, professing his fidelity and offering time and gifts (and trips) along with odd boasts like...
Like any other man I will zoom to the clinic too
Now I wanna see if me and my junior's identical
As for Diddy, he dons his "player" attitude as usual, saying he can't help the women who drape themselves on him because his wealth and success, name checking his Sean John clothes as well as the deceased Notorious "Big Poppa" B.I.G.. Jagged Edge though tips the scales to the romance side, singing they'd forgo all the bling for the woman. DJ Clue gives a funky and different production to the track, though Diddy's verse really doesn't elevate it from what it was. Released about the same time as Ginuwine's "Stingy" from the soundtrack, the music video for this one brings the cast of Barbershop into the storyline...
Part 2 of "Trade It All" became Fabolous' third top-40 hit on the Hot 100 as a lead artist (and highest up to that time) in September of 2002, while making it to #14 on their R&B Singles chart (ending up with a hefty 31 weeks on the list between the two versions), and #8 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song peaked at #5 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format.
The song would go on to be a "bonus" cut on Fabolous' second album Street Dreams in the spring of 2003, which went to #3 on both the Billboard 200 sales tally and the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies.
Fabolous will be back to the series.
(5/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the original "part one" of "Trade It All" from Fabolous' debut Ghetto Fabolous, which had the rapper doing more posturing than the revamped version...
Tomorrow I'll have my top hits of this week, then on Monday I'll have a cluttered country band.
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