Songoftheday 10/20/23 -I'm immaculate come through masculine, wide-body frame E-Dub's the name whoa...

 

 

"React" - Erick Sermon featuring Redman

from the album React (2002) and Honey (Original Soundtrack) (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #36 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 2

 

Today's song comes from rapper Erick Sermon, who had been a part of the seminal rap group EPMD starting it the late 1980, before embarking on a solo career in the following decade that also saw him reuniting with the group. At the turn of the millennium, Sermon signed with veteran executive Clive Davis' J Records, and in 2001 scored a top-40 crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "Music", a single that used a sample of an unreleased song from Marvin Gaye.  

A year later, Erick returned with his fifth solo album and second on J Records, React. The title track, which featured rapper Redman, was released as the lead single. Redman hadn't been in the top-40 as a lead artist since his collaboration with Wu-Tang Clan member Method Man on "How High" in the autumn of 1995. However he had a steady stream of featured spots, some good (on the remix of Styles P's "Good Times") and some horrid (backing Christina Aguilera on her dumpster fire "Dirrty"). Written by the duo with producer Justin "Just Blaze" Smith, the verses seem to be full of braggadocio with a different rhyming scheme, with "react" appearing in the record in the chorus as "If this here rocks to y'all then react". The production starts with a hype from Just Blaze before a weird chipmunk-speed Indian groove sets in. In fact the sound of the thing detracts from the pair, but the biggest dink on this is the sample, which uses a 1963 Bollywood track that translated to ""If someone has suicidal interests, what can we do?" which was weirder because in 2001 he denied trying to unalive himself when he fell off a building. Ugh.

 

"React" became Sermon's second and final top-40 crossover hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in December of 2002, while making it to #12 on their R&B Singles list and #8 on the Rap Singles chart. On the radio, the song also climbed to #28 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single peaked at #14 in the United Kingdom. The React album, released in November of that year, topped out at #72 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #13 on the R&B Albums list. A year later, the song was used on the soundtrack to the Jessica Alba/Mekhi Pfifer movie Honey, which got to #105 on the Billboard 200. 

A second single from the record, "Love Is", sampled a more traditional soul classic with Al Green's "Love & Happiness". However, the single only made it to #80 on the R&B Singles chart. Feeling neglected by J Records, Sermon left the label.

 

Forming Def Squad with Redman and other rappers and grabbing distribution from Universal, Erick released Chilltown, New York in 2004. From it the single "Feel It" with Sy Scott slipped on to the R&B Singles chart for seven weeks with a high of #93. The album stopped at #61 on the Billboard 200 and #16 on the R&B Albums list. But aside for a one-album reunion with Parrish Smith for a new EPMD album in 2008, it would be eleven years after Chilltown for another solo Sermon record to emerge. The result, E.S.P. (Erick Sermon's Perception), made little notice at #41 on Billboard's R&B Albums chart. His most recent album, Vernia, came out in 2019, with "That Girl" as the single.

(3/10)

Tomorrow, I'll be back with my top hit tunes from this week, and songoftheday will be back Monday with a singer gone too soon.