Doo Wop (That Thing)
| "Doo Wop (That Thing)" | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||||
| Single by Lauryn Hill | |||||||
| from the album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill | |||||||
| Released | July 7, 1998 | ||||||
| Format | CD single | ||||||
| Recorded | January 1998 Chung King Studios (New York City) Marley Music, Inc. (Kingston) |
||||||
| Genre | |||||||
| Length |
|
||||||
| Label | |||||||
| Writer(s) | Lauryn Hill | ||||||
| Producer(s) | Lauryn Hill | ||||||
| Lauryn Hill singles chronology | |||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
"Doo Wop (That Thing)" is the debut solo single from American recording artist Lauryn Hill. The song is taken from her debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Written and produced by Hill, the song was released as the album's lead single in July 1998. It was Hill's first and only Billboard Hot 100 number-one, to date. The song won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song at the 1999 Grammy Awards on February 24, 1999. "Doo Wop (That Thing)" debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the tenth song in the chart's history to do so, and the first debut single to do so.
The song is a warning from Hill to African-American men and women caught in "the struggle". Both the women who "[try to] be a hard rock when they really are a gem", and the men who are "more concerned with his rims, and his Timbs, than his women", are admonished by Hill, who warns them not to allow "that thing" to ruin their lives.
Hill's first solo singles were from two 1997 movie soundtracks: "The Sweetest Thing" from Love Jones and a cover of Frankie Valli's 1967 song "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" for Conspiracy Theory.
"Doo Wop," released in 1998 as her first solo song from her debut album, was a major success. It became the 10th single to debut at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100, the first by a rap artist, and still the only by a female rap artist. It stayed there for two weeks in the fall of 1998. It won two Grammy Awards the following February. The success of "Doo Wop" and the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album established Hill as a success outside of her group, The Fugees. In 1999, "Doo Wop (That Thing)" was ranked at number two to find the best music of 1998 on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop annual critics' poll, after Fatboy Slim's "The Rockafeller Skank".
...
Wikipedia