Songoftheday 12/4/23 - Me and miss thang we run a perfect team, we had all the things all them other couples fiend...

 

 

"Tell Me (What's Goin' On)" - Smilez & Southstar

from the album Crash The Party (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

Today's song comes from the rap music duo Smilez (aka Rodney Bailey) and Southstar (aka Rob Campman), who got together in Orlando, Florida. Signed to ARTIST direct Records, they released their debut single "Who Wants This?" in the summer of 2002, which peaked at #65 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart. It also popped on to Billboard's dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic radio chart at #40.

 

It would be their follow-up single that would give the pair their biggest success. "Tell Me (What's Goin' On)" was written by Smilez and Southstar along with producer Jonathan "Dakari" St. Aimee, using a sample of the song "Stop, Look, Listen To Your Heart" from Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, giving writers Linda Creed and Thom Bell credit on the track. The first verse starts out well, with Smilez describing what a good couple he and his woman is, before going into the next saying that he was deceived, without going into any detail at all how. The same goes for Southstar's turn, and by the end only mentions that she was hounding his lifestyle. Billy Lawrence, who was featured on rapper Rampage's 1997 top-40 hit "Take It To The Streets", and had a minor hit of her own that same year with "Come On", provides the sung chorus on this record, though she isn't credited on the label. The production relies on the Gaye/Ross sample too much, and that's the issue - at the same time Ja Rule and Ashanti were in the midst of having a big hit with "Mesmerize" which samples the same song, and this one simply seems redundant. But enough people got into this to bring it onto the pop charts...

"Tell Me" became Smilez & Southstar's first and only hit on Billhoard's Hot 100, reaching the top-40 in March of 2003, while reaching the same rank on their R&B Singles chart and #10 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song went to #21 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, #18 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop list, and #14 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Their first and only album together, Crash The Party, came out in July of 2002, and went to #91 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #24 on the R&B Albums list.

A third single from the record, the album closer "Now That You're Gone", was a minor hit on the Rhythmic radio format at #27. It was in my opinion their best track. They faded from the music scene, but still have an online presence as a working duo.

(3/10)

Up tomorrow: Another hip-hop duo are tired of singlehood.