Songoftheday 2/21/24 - I'm a freak to the core, get a dose once you gon' want some more...

 

 

"Magic Stick" - Lil' Kim featuring 50 Cent

from the album La Bella Mafia (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 21

 

Today's song comes from rapper Lil' Kim, who had returned to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 for the fourth time as a lead artist in the spring of 2003 with "The Jump Off", the lead single from her third album La Bella Mafia. For the follow-up, Kim released a song that originally was meant to be on rapper 50 Cent's debut Get Rich Or Die Tryin', but (conveniently) delayed enough to miss the cutoff and ended up on her disc. "Magic Stick", written by the duo with producers Carlos Evans and Michael Clervoix, uses an interpolation of the blues classic "The Thrill Is Gone", giving writer Roy Hawkins writing credit as well. You can tell it was a 50 Cent track at first since he takes the first verse, bragging about his sexual prowess and "expert technique". Then Kim, with her "magic cl!t", echoes her carnal talents. It's a voyeuristic bore with their sing-song delivery that somehow captivated the masses into listening to this. But that "magic" didn't even last long enough to make a music video...

"Magic Stick" climbed to the runner-up position on the Hot 100 in July of 2003, while also taking three weeks at #3 on their R&B Singles chart, and topped the Rap Singles list for five weeks. On the radio, the song peaked at #7 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, #2 on the Mainstream R&B list, and took five weeks at #1 on the dance/R&B oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the track only got traction in New Zealand peaking at #47 (it may be because of label/50 Cent entanglements). At the Grammy Awards in 2004, The single was nominated for Best Duo/Group Rap Performance, losing out to Nelly, P. Diddy, and Murphy Lee for "Shake Ya Tailfeather".

A third single from La Bella Mafia, "Thug Luv" featuring rapper Twista, was a minor success, hitting #60 on the R&B Singles chart and #14 on the Rap Songs list. Another track from the record, the closer "Came Back For You" (co-written and produced by an up-and-coming Kanye West), was nominated for a Grammy in 2004 for best Female Rap Solo Performance, which went home with Missy Elliott for "Work It". 

Lil Kim will be back to the series.

(3/10)

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Here's Kim performing (to a recorded track with 50) for AOL Sessions...

and lastly, the pair in concert in Australia..

Up tomorrow: We get a bhangra best-seller from an British/Indian artist.