Songoftheday 9/27/23 - I'm mashin' the gas she's grabbin' the wheel, it's trippy how hard she rides with me the new Bobby and Whitney...
"'03 Bonnie And Clyde" - Jay-Z featuring Beyonce Knowles
from the album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 21
Today's song comes from rapper Jay-Z, who broke through the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 for the first time as a lead artist with the lead single from his 2001 album The Blueprint with "I.Z.Z.O. (H.O.V.A.)" and followed it with the top-20 "Girls, Girls, Girls". The following year, the rapper released the sprawling double-disc sequel The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse, with the most highest-profile collaborations of the year as the first single. "'03 Bonnie and Clyde" paired the Sean Carter with Beyonce Knowles, who had last been in the series with her cover of the soft-disco classic "Emotion" which hit the pop top ten in the close of 2001. It was basically a "coming out" to the public for their romantic relationship, which was pretty quiet-like up until then. With the rap lyrics written by Jay-Z and production from an up-and-coming Kanye West, using a sample of "Me And My Girlfriend" (especially taking the "'96 Bonnie and Clyde line at the start) from 2Pac's posthumous album Makaveli - The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory from 1996, giving Shakur and producer Tyrone Wrice writing credit, as well as Prince for Beyonce nabbing part of Prnce's "If I Were Your Girlfriend" giving hum credit as well. The 2Pac sample gives the track a Latin-tinged flavor, which makes me think of Santana's "Maria Maria" straight away. Jay-Z's verses extol his "ride or die" boo, though the addition of their love of watching Sex & The City together gives a chuckle. While Beyonce mostly coos the chorus at the start, she lets loose a bit after the Prince crib. It's odd that at that time Jay-Z held more weight as a solo artist on the pop chart - Beyonce's first solo single, "Work It Out" from the Austin Powers: Goldmember movie she also starred in, failed to make the Hot 100 and only "bubbled under" the R&B chart in American, though the record did go to #11 on the Dance Club Play chart and hit the top ten in the United Kingdom. But this song, using the tried and true crime romance plotline, gave the pair a big boost...
"'03 Bonnie & Clyde" became Jay-Z's second, and Beyonce's first, top ten hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in the closing weeks of 2002, while reaching #5 on their R&B Singles chart and #2 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song hit #7 on the Mainstream Top-40 Airplay chart, #6 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay list, and spent three weeks at #1 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Switzerland, and made the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), Australia (#2), Canada (#4 sales), New Zealand (#4), the Netherlands (#5), Germany (#6), Denmark (#6), Norway (#6), Croatia (#7), Italy (#8), Ireland (#8), and Finland (#10). It also reached the top-40 in Belgium (#12 Flanders/#12 Wallonia), Sweden (#14), France (#25), and Austria (#28). The Blueprint 2 album, released in November of that year, took a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and two weeks atop the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, the album was nominated for Best Rap Album (his fourth nod), losing to another double-disc opus, Outkast's Speakerboxx/The Love Below.
Both Jay-Z and the Blueprint 2 album will be back to the series, and Beyonce was only just beginning.
(6/10)
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Here's the pair on MTV's insane popular TRL: Total Request Live show to perform the song together...
and on the British show CD: UK...
and lastly, in concert in 2018..
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