Songoftheday 3/18/24 - Honestly If I tell you, what you want to know love...

 

 

"Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)" - Lumidee  

from the album Almost Famous (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

Today's song comes from R&B singer Lumidee (Cedeño), who grew up in New York City before starting a music career locally. Hooking up with producers Ted "DJ Tedsmooth" Mendez and Eddie Perez, Lumidee released her debut single "Never Leave You" on the independent Straight Face label in 2003. The song was written by the trio using the Indian music-inspired Jamaican beat called the Diwali Riddim, which gives Jamaican dancehall producer Stephen Mardsen writing credit. Diwali had already anchors two big crossover successes in 2003 with Sean Paul's "Get Busy" and Wayne Wonder's "No Letting Go". What's different here is that Lumidee is singing soul over the beat, and although the lyrics are the oft-trodden fidelity promises, she delivers with a untrained swagger with that Uh Oooh tag that grabs you. A radio remix that includes A-list rappers of that moment Busta Rhymes and Fabolous, got the song widestream exposure, though their two verses kind of drown her out a tad. With getting picked up by monolith Universal Records, Lumidee found herself riding the Diwali trend at just the right time....

 

 "Never Leave You" became Lumidee's first and only top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, reaching the top five in August of 2003, while making it to #9 on their R&B Singles chart. On the radio, the song peaked at #15 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 chart, #8 on the Mainstream R&B airplay list, #4 on the Dance Airplay chart, #33 on the Latin Pop Airplay list, and #5 at the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally the single was just as big, topping the charts in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), and Switzerland, and reaching the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#2), Denmark (#2), Romania (#2), Austria (#4), Croatia (#4), Czechia (#5), Belgium (Wallonia #8), Hungary (#9), France (#12), Norway (#15), Ireland (#17), Sweden (#18), Spain (#20), New Zealand (#25), and Australia (#33). Lumidee's debut album, Almost Famous, was released in June of that year, peaked at #22 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #11 on the R&B Albums list.

Despite the success of the single and top-40 placing of the album, Lumidee's follow-up, "Crashin' A Party", which also featured a rapper in this case N.O.R.E. as well as the singer taking a turn to rap, failed to make any noticable impact in the U.S., though it was a top-40 hit in Germany (#23) and Belgium (#31 Flanders), and a minor hit in the UK at #55. 

In 2005, Lumidee was featured on reggaeton artist Speedy's single "Sientelo", which reached the top ten in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, and Switzerland. Lumidee and rapper Fatman Scoop teamed up for a song for the FIFA World Cup football tournament in Germany with "Dance!", which interpolated Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". While it was a hit in Europe, hitting #4 in Hungary and #5 in Germany, Austria, and Finland, again it went unnoticed in the States. 

The following year, Lumidee returned on the indie TVT label (once home to Nine Inch Nails) for her sophomore effort Unexpected. The first single was a left-field mid-tempo rap/sung cover of Patrick Swayze's Dirty Dancing hit "She's Like The Wind" with Tony Sunshine. The intended update to the Latin Freestyle cover duets of the 80s did rather decently on the radio, reaching #18 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart and #23 on the Rhythmic format, but missed the Hot 100 top-40 at #43. It did get to #29 on the Canadian Airplay chart, and made European lists in Denmark (#6), and Belgium (#14 Flanders/#22 Wallonia). The Unexpected album came in at #44 on the Billboard 200, but spent only three weeks on the list. Another cut from the record, "Crazy" with Pitbull, was a modest success in Germany (#35) and Belgium (#35 Flanders/#40 Wallonia), but again was ignored in America. 

Since then, Lumidee has appeared on a few international artists' singles, and released music on her own, creating the LOGY Music imprint, where the singer put out her most recent studio album 10 13 in 2021. In 2023, she released the single "Honestly 3000", an update of a song from her debut. 

(6/10)

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Here's the original version without Busta and Fabolous...

Lumidee performed the song on the Ricki Lake Show...

and lastly, in concert...

Up tomorrow: St. Louis rapper is pretty present.