Day After Day #106: Doo Wop (That Thing)

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Doo Wop (That Thing) (1998)

A lot of times when artists in successful bands go solo, the results tend to be underwhelming. This was not the case with Lauryn Hill after she left the Fugees in 1997. That group was riding high after topping the charts a year earlier, but band tensions led to a split. 

Already a hot commodity thanks to Fugees hits like "Killing Me Softly" and "Ready or Not," Hill took that freedom and ran with it, releasing The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998. Inspired by her recent marriage to Rohan Marley (a college football player and son of reggae legend Bob) and pregnancy, she worked with a group of musicians called New Ark to create the album, although the songs were solely credited to Hill (New Ark later sued for writing credit and compensation; the suit was settled for $5 million). 

The lead single was "Doo Wop (That Thing)" and it blew up immediately, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first song to debut at #1 that was written, produced and recorded by a sole woman since Debbie Gibson's "Lost in Your Eyes" in 1989. It was also the first hip-hop song by a solo artist to go #1, the first single to debut at #1 and the first song by a female rapper to go to the top of the chart.

"Doo Wop" addresses attitudes of both black men and women in the war of the sexes, with Hill rapping the first few verses while also providing the doo wop-style backing vocals. First she addresses the ladies.

"It's been three weeks since you were looking for your friend/The one you let hit it and never called you again/Remember when he told you he was about the Benjamins?/You act like you ain't hear him, then give him a little trim/To begin, how you think you really gon' pretend/Like you wasn't down and you called him again?"

The guys then get called out.

"The second verse is dedicated to the men/More concerned with his rims and his Timbs than his women/Him and his men come in the club like hooligans/Don't care who they offend, poppin' yang (like you got yen)/Let's stop pretend, the ones that pack pistols by they waist men/Cristal by the case men, still in their mother's basement/The pretty face men claiming they be the big men/Need to take care of their three or four kids."

Yeah, it's a bit preachy but it's so damn catchy. "Girls, you know you'd better watch out/Some guys, some guys are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing/That thing, that thing, that thing/Guys, you know you'd better watch out/Cause girls, some girls are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing/That thing, that thing, that thing."

The late '90s were also a time when videos could have a big impact on the success of songs, and Hill's video for "Doo Wop" was huge. It uses a split screen, with a retro Hill from 1967 singing side-by-side with her 1998 self at a block party in Washington Heights. It's classic R&B and soul on one side and hip hop on the other, perfectly melding the styles Hill uses in the song. 

The album was a monster hit as well, selling over 20 million copies worldwide and won five Grammy awards the following year. Hill was a superstar in her early 20s and set to have a long career, but then something unexpected happened. As of this writing, she still hasn't released a follow-up album. 

There were some reasons for this. An actress before she got into music (she stole the show as a singing nun in Sister Act 2 when she was still a teenager), Hill started working on a screenplay about Bob Marley's life and also reportedly turned down a bunch of acting roles (in movies like Charlie's Angels, A Star is Born, The Bourne Identity and the Matrix sequels). And she ended up having six kids, so there's that.

The pressures of stardom caused her to withdraw from the public eye; she also got into religion, courtesy of her "spiritual advisor" Brother Anthony, who some likened to a cult leader. And she spent three months in jail in 2013 after being found guilty of tax evasion charges.

Hill did release an MTV Unplugged album in 2002 and a few singles over the years, but no albums. She reportedly has recorded plenty of unreleased material. There have been occasional tours, although Hill developed a pattern of showing up hours late for shows. Most recently, she just played at Coachella. She's still a star, but back in the late '90s, Lauryn Hill was dominant.