Robbed hit of the week 11/6/23 - Ja Rule & Bobby Brown's "Thug Lovin'"...

 

 

"Thug Lovin'" - Ja Rule featuring Bobby Brown

from the album The Last Temptation (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from rapper Ja Rule, who had reached the top of the hip-hop pecking order in the early 00's, with his third album Pain Is Love landing three crossover hits with "Down Ass Chick", "Livin' It Up", and the #1 hit "Always On Time" with Ashanti. He also scored two #1 hits as the featured rapper on Jennifer Lopez's "Ain't It Funny" and "I'm Real", and was the lead on the collaborative single "Down 4 U" by producer Irv Gotti's "The Inc.". In the autumn of 2002, Rule returned with a new album, The Last Temptation, preceded by the single "Thug Lovin'", which featured singer Bobby Brown. Brown had been notoriously out of the music spotlight (and more in the tabloid spotlight) since his 1992 album Bobby, which scored a pair of top ten pop hits with "Humpin' Around" and "Good Enough", as well as a radio hit with wife Whitney Houston on "Something In Common". Brown reunited with New Edition in 1996 for and album that also scored a pair of top ten pop hits with "Hit Me Off" and "I'm Still In Love With You". However his drunken antics got him kicked back out from the group, and his belated third album Forever in 1997 was a total mess, getting horrid reviews and only landing a minor R&B hit with "Feelin' Inside" that missed the Hot 100 altogether. So this for sure was meant to use Ja Rule's clout to give Bobby a comeback, as well as generate buzz for the single. Written by the rapper (under his birth name Jeffrey Atkins with producer Gotti (under his name Irving Lorenzo) along with Andre "Chick Santana" Parker, the lyrics have Rule attempting to get his ex back from her new (and faithful to that point) love. He spits out boasts to try to win her back (at least for a bang), with oddly name-checking lines like "You and I make headlines like Lo and Diddy or Bob and Whitney" with Brown on the record as well as totally cringey fare like "I'm here 'cause the Lord sent me (who) pounds puss like a pugilist" RIGHT AFTER that. The production interpolated the Stevie Wonder record "Knocks Me Off My Feet" in its back melody. Bobby's vocals are the best thing about this, but even he seems to be on autopilot. The music video has the trite hoes and bling theme, with the pair both contorting their upper lip constantly like they're stroking out....

 

 

 

While "Thug Lovin'" climbed to #16 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, and #10 on the Rap Singles list, the song stalled right below the top-40 on their Hot 100 in December of 2002. I'm sure the lack of a commercial cassette or CD single which would give it sales points (definitely in the greedy intention of juicing up the album) kept the song from the top-40. On the radio, the song peaked at #13 on the Mainstream R&B Airplay chart and #24 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single did a bit better, reaching the top ten in Australia (#7) and Canada (#10 sales), and made the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#15), the Netherlands (#21), New Zealand (#23), Ireland (#26), and Germany (#36). The Last Temptation album, released in November of that year, came in at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. Although this single was considered a misstep, Ja Rule would return with a huge smash from the album.

(3/10)

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Here's the pair appearing on an awards show in 2002...