Songoftheday 1/3/24 - You already know what it's hittin for ma, I got whatever outside and you know what I'm sittin' on...

 

 

"Excuse Me Miss" - Jay-Z

from the album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song comes from rapper Jay-Z, who kicked off his second Blueprint album with his collaboration with future wife Beyonce, "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" which landed his second top ten hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 at the close of 2002. A second cut from the album, "Hovi Baby" came quickly after that, but wasn't really promoted to radio, though it did make it onto Billboard's R&B Singles chart for a couple of months peaking at #76. 

 

For the third release, Jay-Z went for his collaboration with production duo the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), "Excuse Me Miss", with Pharrell singing the chorus (but not credited on the label proper). It's another in a string of come-on tracks that he's put out with success, but this time he tones it somewhat down though making sure she knows what he can provide for her. It's a tiring theme for sure, but at least it isn't the usual shoot 'em up druggy braggadocio pervasive in the genre at the time. You've got your brand-name flexing, but at least it's coming from someone at the time that can pay for it instead of racking up a credit card bill. There's clever asides snuck in, like the reference to R. Kelly's "Half On A Baby" that will not age well,  as well as the Matrix movie and Laurence Fishburne in particular. The production, instead of having an original Neptunes beat, shuffles in a bevy of samples that has a supposed lovemaking groove put through a weird sonic filter that just askews the mood. The music video has him macking on a woman who is not Beyonce but it at least is effacing enough to be a mind trick...

"Excuse Me Miss" returned Jay-Z quickly back to the Hot 100 top ten in April of 2003, while landing his second #1 hit on the R&B Singles chart as a lead artist, and peaked at #2 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song didn't make the pop airplay chart (as "Bonnie & Clyde" did), but went to #2 on the Mainstream R&B Airplay chart, and #14 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single went top ten on the Canadian sales chart at #8, and hit the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#17) and Australia (#38). At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Excuse Me Miss" was nominated for Best Rap Song in its first year as a category, losing to Eminem's "Lose Yourself".

As the song was peaking on the chart, Jay-Z released an alternate version of the album called The Blueprint 2.1, which condensed the original two-disc set to a one-disc and added a couple new songs. Two of those reached the R&B Singles chart, with "Stop", a Swizz Beatz production, hitting #53, and a sequel to "Excuse Me Miss" of sorts, "La-La-La (Excuse Me Again)", appearing on the Bad Boys II soundtrack and rising to #37 and "bubbling under the Hot 100 at #112.

Jay-Z will be back to the series.

(4/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the songs sequel from the 2.1 edition, "La-La-La", which made the R&B top-40...

and finally, a short clip of Jay-Z live...

 

 Up tomorrow: the second singer from the boy-band titans is up to bat, explosively.