Songoftheday 11/6/24 -I'm a d!ck thrower her neck and her back hurtin', cut throater have you like a brand new virgin...

 

 

"Slow Motion" - Juvenile featuring Soulja Slim

from the album Juve The Great (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 23

 

Today's song comes from the 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 record, "In My Life", with producer/rapper Mannie Fresh, made the top-20 on both the Rap (#13) and R&B/Hip-Hop Singles charts, but stalled under the top-40 on the Hot 100 at #46 in the beginning of 2004. A follow-up, "Bounce Back" with rapper Baby aka "Birdman" didn't initially make any notice at first.

 

The next single from the record was "Slow Motion", which featured rapper James "Soulja Slim" Tapp Jr. Soulja Slim, who also grew up in New Orleans and started young dealing drugs, eventually fell in with the local label Parkway Pumpin', who also sported rappers Mystikal and Fiend. And like those two, Slim moved over to the then-burgeoning No Limit enterprise headed by rapper/producer/exec Master P. It was there he released his debut album Give It 2 'Em Raw, which came in at #13 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #4 on the R&B Albums chart, but at the time the rapper was in prison, so promotion was killed and no singles hit the charts. A second disc on the label, The Streets Made Me, did worse, stopping at #188 on the Billboard 200 and #42 on the R&B Albums chart. In the next couple of years he released two more sets on his own Cut Throat Committee imprint. However, he was murdered outside his family home in New Orleans.

"Slow Motion", written by Juvenile and Soulja Slim, was released as a single after Slim's passing. The lyrics has Soulja taking the first and third verses and choruses, where he brags about his sexual prowess, despite admittedly looking like a dog. Juvenile comes in on the second and fourth verses though frighteningly with lines like "You must have heard about them hoes I beat up in my home, they wasn't telling the truth baby you know they was wrong". OOF. And it just gets more misogynistic from there, atop the production from Dani Kartel that sways with the tempo of, well those relations. The music video lays out like a memorial to Slim, though with the lyrical content is quite jarring (including gyrating women about)...

Nevertheless, the hype over Slim's death along with Juvenile's popularity sent "Slow Motion" all the way to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 in August of 2004, while topping the Rap Singles chart for six weeks and spending three weeks at #2 on their R&B/Hip-Hop Singles list (behind Usher's "Confessions Part II" and Terror Squad's "Lean Back"). On the radio, the song was hit sole hit on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, reaching #10, while taking six weeks at #1 on their Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay list as well as five on top of the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single peaked at #11 on the Canadian airplay chart. The Juve Is 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.

 

"Bounce Back" was re-released as the third single, and crawled to #85 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, despite having a smoother production and lack of woman-bashing. 

Juvenile will be back to the series.

(2/10)

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Here's Juvenile performing at the Source Awards in 2004...

Up tomorrow G-Unit rapper takes a flaming sidejob.