Candyman "Knockin' Boots"

Album: Ain't No Shame In My Game (Epic; 1990)
R&B Peak Position: #5

"Hard as rock, yes I'm no sucka/ The boots I knock make me one bad mutha..."

R&B singer Betty Wright had everyone looking back fondly on their awkward "first times" when she zoomed up the charts in the fall of 1978 with the cherished losing-virginity ode "Tonight Is The Night". While it had originally premiered four years prior as a B-side, "Tonight" became it's most popular when it was re-released as an extended, eight-minute-plus live rendition, led off with a "rapped" intro that tracked the song's beginnings as a notebook poem through it's eventual studio recording, to it's hilarious reveal to Wright's mother (who famously responded: "The melody, it's really nice...BUT I KNOW YOU'RE NOT GON' SING THAT SONG!!").

The song carefully romanticizing it's brow-raising theme behind the innocent POV of a young girl finally ready to cross that threshold to "woman-hood", Wright's typically gritty pipes are relaxed into a girlish ease, tenderly coasting atop the track's lubricious groove as she nervously awaits her man's arrival. Though her giddy anxiety (and rear-of-mind fear that Mama might come home early) intensifies which each step he makes closer to her door, Wright never sways from her decision to "give it up" ("We’ve gone a little bit too far now...to turn around"), her body nearly boiling over with ecstasy in anticipation of his long-awaited touch and the ultimate consummation of what she's deemed "pure love".



DL: "Tonight Is The Night" (YFH)

With early affiliations with NWA and Tone Loc, Los Angeles-born emcee Candell Manson (bka Candyman), would soon arise as a major component of the then-burgeoning late '80's West Coast rap scene. In 1987 he recorded "Knockin' Boots", a seductive, loverman rap ditty that looped a portion of "Tonight Is The Night" for it's backing track, and "borrowed" the hook from Rose Royce's much-treasured 1977 jam "Ooh Boy". After enjoying some time as a regional success, "Boots" led to Candyman scoring a deal with Epic Records who re-released the tune in national markets as a single from his major label debut, Ain't No Shame In My Game.

One of the biggest pop-rap records of it's time, "Knockin' Boots" succeeded greatly at the masterful mixture of it's many notable elements: The Betty Wright/ Rose Royce samples; a floor-crowding intro from Tone ("Attention all ladies...") and Candyman's charismatic turn at the mic. Rocking a smooth, near-whispery flow, CM feigned the naive role in a tale of two groupies so turned on by his Lothario stage persona, they sneak into his limo and lead him to the Holiday Inn (where they even opt to handle room fees) for an all-night romp.

With the Rose Royce bit cleverly representing the groupies' stalker-like advances ("Ooh boy I love you so/ Never-ever-ever wanna let you go..."), Candyman spends the rest of the cut divulging the lengthy pleasures of the trio's 'til-A.M. adventure, even admitting at one point how he resorted to some James Brown-inspired histrionics in yearning for another round of their sex-capades.

The relatively PG-13-rated number made Candyman an instant-star as it catapulted to the upper reaches of both the urban and pop charts, nabbing Platinum sales alongside a million sold for Shame. But like most other rappers to explode out of the gate with a crossover smash, the rest of Candyman's career suffered by his inability to match it's uber-success, earning him the unavoidable "one-hit wonder" tag.

Best Moment: "Understand I'm the Candyman/ And I melt in your mouth, not in your hands" (2:24)



DL: "Knockin' Boots" (YFH)