Almost hit of the week 9/16/24 - Juvenile's "In My Life"...
"In My Life" - Juvenile featuring Mannie Fresh
from the album Juve The Great (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46 (two weeks)
This week's "robbed hit" comes from rapper Terius "Juvenile" Gray, who had landed a top-40 crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the late fall of 1999 with "Back That Azz Up" from his third album (and first majorly distributed) 400 Degreez. Very soon later, he released his follow-up album on Cash Money/Universal Records, Tha G-Code, which topped Billboard's R&B Albums chart and hit #10 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies (still a fourth of what 400 Degreez sold). But the main single from the project, "U Understand", was only a modest R&B hit at #27, while stalling at #83 on the Hot 100. That was followed in 2001 with Project English, which came in at #2 on both the Billboard 200 and R&B Albums lists, but only cleared just over a half million copies sold. The lead single "Set It Off" went a little higher on the R&B Singles list at #19, but again stopped at #65 on the Hot 100.
In 2003, Juvenile reunited with rappers B.G., Lil Wayne, and Turk to restart the group Hot Boys for a third album Let 'Em Burn, which went to #14 on the Billboard 200 chart. Owing one more solo record to Cash Money, the rapper delivered Juve The Great at the end of the year. The first single from the set was "In My Life", which featured producer/rapper Byron "Mannie Fresh" Thomas, who also backed Juve up on "Back That Azz Up". Mannie was also in the group Big Tymers with rapper Baby, who just missed the top ten in the summer of 2002 with "Still Fly". Written by the pair, the song has nothing to do with the reflective classic Beatles song but rather is a list of demands of what they want. Of course this includes in his words cars, clothes, jewels and "hoes" among other things. The production by Mannie is by the book flashy and simple, and in the end it's just another materialistic fodder for the rap fans to show off his wealth, which is aggrandized in the music video...
While "In My Life" peaked at #13 on Billboard magazine's Rap Singles chart, and #18 on the R&B Singles list, it stalled under the top-40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February of 2004. On the radio, the song rose to #14 on the Mainstream R&B airplay chart and #40 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. The Juve The Great album, released in December of 2003, stopped at #28 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #4 on the R&B Albums list, but did sell over a million copies, thanks to a subsequent single that would become Juvenile's biggest hit.
As for Mannie Fresh, he would release his own album The Mind Of Mannie Fresh at the end of 2004, which went to #47 on the Billboard 200 and #16 on the R&B Albums list. A single from the set, "Real Big", reached the top-40 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart at #33 and popped on to the Hot 100 at #79. In a few years, he would again be close to the top-40 as a featured guest.
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