Twostepcublog

    " Runnin' (Dying To Live) " - 2Pac featuring Notorious B.I.G. from the album Tupac: Resurrection (Soundtrack) (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 11   Today's song featured two hip-hop music icons that had passed in the previous decade, Tupac ( 2Pac ) Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. , who were gunned down in 1996 and 1997 respectively.  While Biggie, who was on Sean "P Diddy" Combs' Bad Boy label, hadn't really been in the spotlight, with his last hit as a lead artist, " Going Back To Cali " reaching the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 1998, though Diddy slipped a snippet of him into his own top-20 single " Victory " later that spring. Meanwhile Tupac, whose Makaveli album Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory , was released at the time of his death, saw Interscope Records and his estate mine his jettisoned material for four posthumous album releases as well as a Gr

    " Milkshake " - Kelis from the album Tasty (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (five weeks) Weeks in the Top-40: 16   Today's song comes from R&B singer  Kelis Rogers, who grew up in New York City, where he finished high school at an arts-based school before pursuing a music career, using just her first name. Her first big break came at the close of 1999, where she had a featured vocalist spot singing the chorus on the single " Got Your Money " by Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard.  That record got her into the top-40 on the pop chart and the R&B singles list. At the time that was peaking, Kelis released her debut album Kaleidoscope , produced by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of the Neptunes, who also helmed "Got Your Money". The pair wrote all the songs on the disc (including three co-writes with Kelis), including the lead single " Caught Out There ". That song was a stone-cold classic, and made it to #9 on

    " Clap Back " - Ja Rule from the album Blood In My Eye (2003)  Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44 This week's "almost hit" comes from rapper Ja Rule , whose fourth album on Murder Inc. Records, The Last Temptation , had landed a #2 hit with the single " Mesmerize " in the beginning of 2003. But that album was rife with issues with lead single "Thug Lovin'", a supposed high-profile duet with Bobby Brown, stiffing and the record on a whole getting a better reception overseas espectially in the United Kingdom than at home. Also, his hitmaking prowess, powered by collabs with Jennifer Lopez and Ashanti (the latter featuring on "Mesmerize") getting overshadowed by newcomers Eminem and 50 Cent. That was compounded by the Murder Inc business getting raided by the feds for money laundering around the time "Mesmerize" was climbing the chart. In response to accusations of him getting "soft", Ja Rule released Blood In Th

    " Read Your Mind " - Avant from the album Private Room (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 20   Today's song comes from R&B singer Avant , whose second album on MCA Records, Ecstasy , tried to go for the R. Kelly bedroom-calling market and scored a top-40 crossover hit in the spring of 2002 with " Makin' Good Love ".  But by a year later, MCA would be a casualty of the huge merger spree at the start of the millennium, with most of its acts getting put over to Geffen. In the fall of that year, Avant returned with the lead single from his third disc Private Room , "Read Your Mind". Written by the singer with producer Steve Huff, the song find Avant macking on a girl he just met at the club and convincing her to leave with him in his truck for some shenanigans. He's still trying to put himself across as the R. Kelly alternative, but at least this time he forgoes aping the production for a more updated retro