Songoftheday 11/14/23 - See I walk through the club wit my Prada on, valet to da keys cuz tha cars so strong...

 

 

"Do That..." - Baby featuring P. Diddy

from the album Birdman (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song comes from record company mogul and aspiring rapper Bryan Williams (born Brooks), who started his music career rapping under the moniker "Baby", a nickname he had from childhood in New Orleans, where he grew up in a broken home, with his mother being killed when he was five. Becoming a criminal in his teens, Williams was incarcerated for a few years. After being let out, Baby wanted to get away from that life, and with his brother Ronald (aka "Slim") he created a record company, Cash Money Records, in the early 1990s. They signed a few acts, and in 1999, one of them, B.G. (aka Christopher Dorsey), had a crossover hit with the single "Bling Bling", which popped on to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. That record featured Baby as well as another rapper/producer on the label, Mannie Fresh. Baby and Mannie would themselves form a fledgling rap duo calling Big Tymers, which also his the top-40 in the summer of 2002 with "Still Fly". 

But Baby also had plans on making it as a solo artist, and released his first set Birdman in the late fall of 2002. The lead single from the record was "Do That...", which was written by Williams with producer Phalon "Jazze Pha" Alexander and rapper Varick "Smitty" Smith. But instead of Smitty being on the record, it's fellow record label mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, who at the time was riding to #1 as a featured guest on boyband B2K's "Bump, Bump, Bump". Mannie Fresh was also on the record giving a chorus with singer Tateeze, but neither gets the honor of a credit on the record. The result, though, has the pair trying to out spend each other at the club, which for a party track seems like a mood-killer. With Baby and Diddy just positioning trying to accumulate "lady friends", it gets old fast, but that at least know what their "audience" wants. The production is adequate but also has been done before, but it fit the pattern enough that Baby found himself with his first solo hit. The music video for some reason has the pair "coming into an inheritance" instead of making their millions themselves, I guess for comic effect...

"Do That..." reached the top 40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in January of 2003, while peaking at #21 on their R&B Singles chart and #10 on the Rap Songs list. On the radio, the song climbed to #12 on the Mainstream R&B/HipHop Airplay chart, and #10 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. The Birdman album, released in November of 2002, came in at #24 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #4 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half-million copies. 

Baby's follow-up single, "What Happened To That Boy", featured the rap duo Clipse, who had a pair of top-40 crossover hits in 2002 and featured future bigger star Pusha T. While the Neptunes-produced song did even better on the R&B chart at #14, it stalled under the Hot 100 top-40 at #45. A third release, "Baby You Can Do It", had A-lister Toni Braxton singing on it, and Tim "Timbaland" Mosley producing, and interpolating a known hit (SOS Band's "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" but somehow flopped. 

Baby will be back (as will P. Diddy), but under a different name.

(2/10)

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Here's a small clip of Birdman (without Diddy but with a then-new Lil Wayne and Mannie Fresh) on BET...

Up tomorrow: Pop-punk band takes a note from Robin Leach.