Songoftheday 11/21/24 - I see the girls in the club they gettin' wild for me, and all the pretty chicks all wanna smile at me...
"Welcome Back" - Ma$e
from the album Welcome Back (2004)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #32 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song comes from rapper Mason Betha, who performs under the nickname Ma$e, who was one of Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' most successful protege's on his Bad Boy Records label, topping the Billboard 200 sales tally with his debut album Harlem World, which also spun off three top ten hit singles on the Hot 100 chart with "Feel So Good", "What You Want", and "Lookin' At Me" in 1997 through 1998. However when he quickly returned the next year with the harder-hitting sophomore effort Double Up, Ma$e had a change of heart renouncing this path, and announcing his retirement from music to pursue college studies, tanking the promotion of the album, which started at #11 on the Billboard 200 but only sold a half million, a fraction of his first set. The lead single from the record, the Shalamar-sampling "Get Ready", which featured the R&B vocal group Blackstreet (who he scored a hit with as a feature on the Rugrats soundtrack song "Take Me There"), stalled at #50 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, and only "bubbled under" the all-genre Hot 100 at #125 (the lowest it could make it).
Ma$e came back to Bad Boy and recording in 2004 with his third (and so far most recent) album Welcome Back, which cleaned up his image to correspond with his religious career. The title track and lead single interpolated the TV theme to the hit show and #1 single for John Sebastian, "Welcome Back", giving up all the writing royalties to the former Lovin' Spoonful singer. The lyrics have him brag about the women who pursue him, but says he's all about the clean and sober lifestyle and looking for a longtime partner. The production from "The Movement", aka James Bunton and Corron Cole, who would go on to produce teen idols Justin Bieber and Jesse McCartney, is bright and uses the sample to good effect, so it was a surprise that pop radio basically ignored it. The music video in retrospect is frightening for a clip featuring Sean Combs that mimics Mister Rogers' Neighborhood...
"Welcome Back" returned Ma$e to the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in June of 2004, while peaking at #17 on their R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and #8 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song rose to #14 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, and #17 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single peaked at #4 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in Switzerland (#25), Canada (#27 airplay), and the United Kingdom (#29 as a double single with "Breathe, Stretch, Shake"). The Welcome Back album, released in August of that year, came in at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #3 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.
Ma$e and the album will be back to the series.
(5/10)
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