Songoftheday 6/28/24 - Seven series BM six series Benz, twenty-four inches Giovanni rims...
"Stunt-101" - G-Unit
from the album Beg For Mercy (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song comes from the rap collective G-Unit, which featured one of the biggest hip-hop acts of the beginning of the millennium, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. 50 Cent, along with friends Lloyd Banks (aka Christopher Lloyd) and Tony Yayo (Marvin Bernard) grew up together in the Queens section of New York City. Jackson was originally signed to Columbia Records, but after he was dropped, the trio came together with Banks and Yayo to form G-Unit. After Jackson was signed to Interscope as a solo artist, he would go on to score a trio of top ten hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "In Da Club", "21 Questions", and "P.I.M.P.". But at the same time, he arranged for Banks and Yayo to be signed under his own vanity imprint on Interscope, named for their group name G-Unit. 50 Cent went to record a collaborative album, but Yayo went to prison for weapons charges. In his stead, 50 and Banks recruited rapper David "Young Buck" Brown from Tennessee to fill Yayo's place. Brown and Banks would first appear on the remix to "P.I.M.P.".
In the break between 50's solo album G-Unit released its first group album Beg For Mercy. The lead single from the record was "Stunt-101", written by Jackson, Lloyd, and Brown with producer Denaun "Mr." Porter. The title word was slang for showing off your wealth, being cars or clothes or houses, and the "101" sounds like it's intended to be a tutorial on how to get or do these things. But it really isn't, but rather a Ted Talk of the trio bragging about their riches, along with such random lines like "My royalty check's the rebirth of Liberace". The only difference may be that Young Back throw in his southern roots as well as his liberation from former label Cash Money where he was signed but never released music of his own. The production from Porter is sloppy and wonky in rhythm doesn't really have any progression from the verses, where each rapper gets a turn, to the badly sung "chorus". It's just all brand porn accompanied by a flashy crime string music video, with Brandy apparently selling her soul to seem relevant on MTV...
"Stunt 101" capitalized on 50 Cent's momentum and reached the top-20 on Billboard's Hot 100 in December of 2003, while climbing to #7 on the R&B Singles chart and #5 on their Rap Songs list. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in New Zealand (#13), Switzerland (#19), the United Kingdom (#25), Australia (#32), and Germany (#39). The Beg For Mercy album, released in November of that year, came in at #2 on both the Billboard 200 and R&B Albums sales tallies, going on to sell over two million copies.
G-Unit and the album will be back to the series.
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Here's the trio appearing on the BET Network to promote the single...
Tomorrow I'll roll out my top 100 hits for this week, then on Monday Song of the Day will be back with an R&B singer doing some mental telepathy.
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