Twostepcublog

    " Wanksta " - 50 Cent from the mixtape No Mercy, No Fear (2002) & albums 8 Mile (Original Soundtrack) (2002) and Get Rich Or Die Tryin' (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 14   Today's song comes from Curtis Jackson, the rapper who records under the moniker 50 Cent , who grew up in Queens, New York. With a mother who dealt drugs and died when he was eight, Jackson started dealing before he was even a teenager, and eventually was convicted of it, though he missed jail time in lieu of a "get straight" camp in 1994. In a couple of years Curtis would pick up rapping, and originally hooking up with Run DMC's Jam Master Jay, before being signed to Columbia Records. There he recorded a debut album, and released his first single " How To Rob " featuring The Madd Rapper (aka producer Deric Angelettie), which placed in on Billboard magazine's R&B chart for the first time at #62.  But after two more sin...

    " Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous " - Good Charlotte from the album The Young and the Hopeless (2002) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 7   Today's song comes from the rock band Good Charlotte , who came together in the southern Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC in the mid 1990s. Led by twins Benji and Joel Madden, schoolmates Paul Thomas on bass and drummer Aaron Escolopio were recruited at first, with rhythm guitarist Billy Martin joining soon after. After playing the local club circuit, and opening for mid-level rock acts like Lit and Sum 41, the band was signed to Epic Records, after the positive radio love in the area for their song " Little Things ", which would become the lead single from their eponymous debut album in 2000. The song slipped on to Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart at #23, while the album spent a couple weeks on the  Billboard 200 sales tally with a high of #185. Despite that, it wou...

    " Do That... " - Baby featuring P. Diddy from the album Birdman (2002) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 4   Today's song comes from record company mogul and aspiring rapper Bryan Williams (born Brooks), who started his music career rapping under the moniker " Baby ", a nickname he had from childhood in New Orleans, where he grew up in a broken home, with his mother being killed when he was five. Becoming a criminal in his teens, Williams was incarcerated for a few years. After being let out, Baby wanted to get away from that life, and with his brother Ronald (aka "Slim") he created a record company, Cash Money Records, in the early 1990s. They signed a few acts, and in 1999, one of them, B.G. (aka Christopher Dorsey), had a crossover hit with the single " Bling Bling ", which popped on to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. That record featured Baby as well as another rapper/producer on the ...

    " Make It Clap " - Busta Rhymes featuring Spliff Star from the album It Ain't Safe No More... (2002) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46 (three weeks)   This week's "robbed hit" comes from rapper Busta Rhymes , whose fifth studio album Genesis had spun off a pair of singles that crossed over to Billboard magazine's Hot 100 Top-40 with " Break Ya Neck ", and the Grammy-nominated " Pass The Courvoisier Part II ", with the latter coming a notch from making the top ten in the spring of 2002. At the close of that year, Busta returned with his second release on J Records, It Ain't Safe No More ... The lead single from the set was the party record "Make It Clap", which featured his "hype man" from the Flipmode Squad William " Spliff Star " Lewis. Written by the rapper (under his birth name Trevor Smith) with producer Ricardo "RickRock" Thomas, the lyrics are a lot of wealth boasting as well as Busta...

    " Satisfaction " - Eve from the album Eve-Olution (2002) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 4   Today's song comes from rapper Eve , who scored a top-ten crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the autumn of 2002 with her collaboration with Alicia Keys on " Gangsta Lovin' ".  The second single pulled from her third album on Ruff Ryders Records, Eve-Olution , was "Satisfaction". The song was written by Eve with producers Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo, and the verses basically have Eve posturing about her success and how she defied the odds and is never going back to the bottom again. She positions herself as an independent woman, but there's really not much backup to the boasts (as is usual in the genre), while summarily needing to name-check Dr. Dre. But the best thing about this is the loose and funky production from Dr and Elizondo, though Eve rides the groove sufficiently. With a West Philly-style mu...

  Saturday's here, and it's time to run down my top 100 "hit" tunes from the previous week. Noah Kahan and Post Malone stay put at #1 for a fourth week, while Doja Cat (pictured above) takes her Dionne Warwick-sampling record up two notches in the top ten. Former big hits from OneRepublic, Tamar Braxton, Kane Brown, Dirty Heads, Fifty Fifty, and Peggy Gou drop off my chart, while songs from boygenius, Jelly Roll/Lainey Wilson, and Maneskin make some of the biggest jumps (moves of 10+ places highlighted in red ). A peaceful Veterans Day weekend...   This Week               Song/Artist (last week's position in parentheses) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Dial Drunk - Noah Kahan f/Post Malone (1) 2. Under You - Foo Fighters (2) 3. Snooze - SZA (3) 4. What Was I Made For? - Billie Eilish (4) 5. I Remember Everything - Zach Bryan f/Kacey Musgraves (5) 6. Used To Be Young ...

    " Mesmerize " - Ja Rule featuring Ashanti from the album The Last Temptation (2002) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week) Weeks in the Top-40: 17   Today's song comes from rapper Ja Rule , who I just featured on my "robbed hits" series at the start of this week, when the lead single from his fourth studio album The Last Temptation, " Thug Lovin' " with Bobby Brown, missed Billboard magazine's Hot 100 top-40 by only a couple of notches at the close of 2002.  After scoring a trio of hits from his previous album, including " Always On Time " which went to #1, as well as appearing on the top ten single " Down 4 U " by Irv Gotti's The Inc, and topped the Hot 100 twice with Jennifer Lopez on " I'm Real " and " Ain't It Funny ", that failure to reach at least the top-40 or get any pop radio airplay was a huge disappointment. The record company must have forseen this early, as Def Jam put at th...