Sunday December 23rd 2001
Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and R&B Album Chart December 29
New CD's this week:
Only one new album released this last last
week and that's the new album by
Bell Biv DeVoe "BBD" after being absent for 8 years, as a group at
least.
Short news stories this week:
Joe Features Petey Pablo On 'Let's Stay Home Tonight' Remix
Timbaland protege Petey Pablo guest raps on
a remix of Joe's "Let's Stay Home
Tonight," which reached Number 18 last week on Billboard's Hot
R&B/Hip-Hop
Singles & Tracks chart. The song is the first release from Joe's album,
"Better
Days", which enters the Billboard 200 album chart this week at Number 32
and
also includes collaborations with the Neptunes, Shaggy, and the Boys Choir Of
Harlem. Joe and Pablo are expected to release a special remix video for the
song.
Joe released his debut, "Everything", in 1993. That album was followed
with 1997's
platinum "All That I Am", and last year's triple platinum "My
Name Is Joe". Pablo's
debut, "Diary Of A Sinner", released last month, was recently
certified gold.
Sugar Hill Gang Wins Lawsuit
Nearly $3 million was awarded to the
members of the Sugar Hill Gang, the pivotal
hip-hop group that took rap music from its New York origins to the rest of
America
in 1979. At issue was the wrongful use of their images and voices. The losers in
this
case were Snapple Beverage Corporation and Turner Broadcasting. The suit was
originally filed in 1999 and involved a Snapple commercial that aired on TV in
1998.
It showed the Sugar Hill Gang performing their hit, "Rapper's
Delight," as part of a
vignette advertising the Goodwill Games of which Snapple was a sponsor. The
group
says it was told that the segment would air only on closed circuit monitors at a
Studio
54 party in Manhattan. In June, a U.S. District Court judge granted summary
judgment
on behalf of the group. On Friday, a jury awarded them $165,000 in compensatory
damages and $2.8 million in punitive damages.
Bell Biv Devoe Returns With First New Album In Eight Years
R&B trio Bell Biv Devoe's new album BBD
came out yesterday (December 18), and
it marks the group's first album of new material in eight years. Members Ricky
Bell,
Ronnie Devoe, and Michael Bivins started their careers as members of the '80s
R&B
teen sensations New Edition. After New Edition temporarily disbanded, Bell Biv
Devoe (BBD) formed in 1988 and the group's first full-length effort, 1990's
Poison,
was certified quadruple-platinum for sales of four million copies. The group's
two
subsequent releases, 1991's WBBD-Bootcity! and 1993's Hootie Mack, were both
certified gold for sales of 500,000 copies each.
The first single from the new set is "Da Hot Sh-t (Aight)," which was
produced
by Rockwilder. The song is currently Number 18 on the Billboard Bubbling Under
R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart. A video for "Da Hot Sh-t (Aight)"
directed by the
Brothers Strause is currently in rotation at video outlets.