songoftheday 11/10/23 - Bring heat to coldest night so ferocious, how you street promotin' the dick game is potent...

 

 

"Mesmerize" - Ja Rule featuring Ashanti

from the album The Last Temptation (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 17

 

Today's song comes from rapper Ja Rule, who I just featured on my "robbed hits" series at the start of this week, when the lead single from his fourth studio album The Last Temptation, "Thug Lovin'" with Bobby Brown, missed Billboard magazine's Hot 100 top-40 by only a couple of notches at the close of 2002.  After scoring a trio of hits from his previous album, including "Always On Time" which went to #1, as well as appearing on the top ten single "Down 4 U" by Irv Gotti's The Inc, and topped the Hot 100 twice with Jennifer Lopez on "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny", that failure to reach at least the top-40 or get any pop radio airplay was a huge disappointment. The record company must have forseen this early, as Def Jam put at the second single only a month later. Also, it relied on an already-proven success, pairing Ja Rule up again with his "Always On Time" collaborator Ashanti. Since that duet, Ashanti released her own debut album, which landed a huge #1 hit with "Foolish" as well as two respectably-showing follow-ups in "Happy" and "Baby". The song was written by the pair with producers Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo and Andre "Chink Santana" Parker, while sampling the song "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)" recorded by Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross, giving Thom Bell and the late Linda Creed writing credit. That record was put out as a single in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at #25 in 1974...

As for "Mesmerize", Ja Rule and Ashanti use the sample original's love bliss mood to try to recreate the same theme as "Always On Time", where the rapper and singer echo each other's profession of devotion. Of course, as lascivious as Marvin could be, he wouldn't stoop so low as to deliver lines like "I, got a fetish for fuckin' you with your skirt on on the backstreet in the back seat of the Yukon" to MISS FREAKING ROSS. And Ashanti sort of mirrors it back with "I've been goin half crazy for your love and I was told that the sex, better than drugs". (Really?) The production seems to sterilize the sound of the sample, with an affected staccato "string" section, and it's odd the word mesmerize isn't in the lyrics. The music video also tries to redo the movie version of Grease while inserting a wack faux crime boss subplot that somehow turns into a protest march? Very messy...

 

"Mesmerize" did manage to turn the momentum around for Rule, climbing to the runner-up spot on the Hot 100 in February of 2003, while rising to #5 on their R&B Singles chart and #2 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song peaked at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, #4 on the Mainstream R&B radio list, and #2 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic list. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in New Zealand (#3) and Australia (#5), and made the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#12), Canada (#19 Sales), Ireland (#19), and the Netherlands (#33). 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.

 

A third single, "Reign", featured Ja Rule alone, and in a pun on the title sample's Toto's "Africa". Originally on the album as "Murder Reigns", the renamed single flopped completely in the U.S., but paired with a song from his upcoming next album, "Clap Back", went to #9 on the British Singles chart.  (That song will be an upcoming "robbed hit"). 

But both Ja Rule and Ashanti will be back to the series.

(4/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Ja Rule and Ashanti appearing on ABC's New Years Eve broadcast, after a totally awkward transition from Ryan Seacrest...

and lastly, the pair reunited for the web battle show Verzuz...

Tomorrow I'll have my top hits from last week, then SOTD will be back Monday with a female rapper seeking fulfillment.