Songoftheday 4/30/24 - Picture us dancin' real close In a dark dark corner of a basement party, every time I close my eyes It's like everyone left but you and me...

 

 

"Baby Boy" - Beyonce featuring Sean Paul

from the album Dangerously In Love (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (nine weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 26

 

Today's song is from Beyonce, who kick-started her solo career into high gear in the summer of 2003 when the lead single from her debut album Dangerously In Love, "Crazy In Love" with future husband Jay-Z, topped Billlboard magazine's Hot 100 for two months. For the second single from the record, Beyonce paired up with another then-red-hot artist on the charts, dancehall prince Sean Paul, who had already landed three crossover hits on the chart with "Gimme The Light", "Like Glue", and the #1 smash "Get Busy".  Written by Beyonce and Paul along with Jay-Z, Robert Waller, and co-producer Scott Storch, the track is anchored by a South Asian beat that was pervasive in the Jamaican dancehall scene at the time, which had flourishes of strings and exotic instruments. The lyrics are about desire, but looking in retrospect this seems more like a Sean Paul record that Beyonce is riffing the chorus on than a Beyonce record that Paul is throwing a guest verse at. He starts the record and dominates most of it, with Beyonce coming in for the chorus and cooing a couple verses in the middle that seem almost like a bridge. Sonically, it's seamless, but substantially it's a bit more vibe than substance. But both were so popular at the time that the song was unstoppable, and it managed to spend even more time at the top than "Crazy In Love" did. The music video kept the pair separated, with Beyonce going full belly-dancer pastiche on the beach (ooh, the sand)..

"Baby Boy" spent nine weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 starting in October of 2003, while taking five weeks atop their R&B Singles chart. On the radio, the song topped Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 chart for a week, stayed on top of the Mainstream R&B list for five weeks, and took seven weeks at #1 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. The dance remixes of the track, from Junior Vasquez and Maurice Joshua, helped it top the Dance Airplay chart for a week and hold for two weeks at #2 on the Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), Canada (#2 Sales), New Zealand (#2), Australia (#3), Hungary (#3), Germany (#4), Sweden (#5), Switzerland (#5), Denmark (#6), Ireland (#6), Croatia (#6), Belgium (#7 Wallonia/#11 Flanders), France (#8), Spain (#8), and Norway (#10). It also hit the top-20 in the Netherlands (#11), Greece (#11), Italy (#12), and Austria (#18).

Both Beyonce and Sean Paul as well as the Dangerously In Love album will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's Beyonce performing both "Baby Boy" and "Crazy In Love" at the MTV Music Video Awards though with Sean Paul piped in her dancing is most of it...

next up, from her On The Run tour in 2014...

This is the Junior Vasquez remix that was a decent club hit...

and lastly, back to 2005 on her tour with Destiny's Child...

Up tomorrow: This pop-punk band flies like a particular Eagle into the top-40.