Song:For The Love Of Money/Living For The City
Album:Music From The Motion Picture New Jack City
This is one of these cases where a soundtrack of a film outperformed the film. But the film did pretty good. There was a style of black music that emerged in the late 80s called New Jack Swing. The 1991 film New Jack City is about drug wars in New York City but without the music, I don't think they give the film that title. The film was written by Thomas Lee Wright who had directed a documentary about gangs and Barry Michael Cooper. After this film, he became the hot black screenwriter and wrote Above The Rim and Sugar Hill. Mario Van Peebles directed the film and starred in it with Wesley Snipes and Ice T. Obviously the producers wanted a hit soundtrack album to go with the movie. So they hired Teddy Riley to produce it and he invented New Jack Swing. There were a couple of hit singles from the album. The big one was I'm Dreaming by Christopher Williams which topped the R & B Singles chart. But this medley of The O'Jays' For The Love Of Money and Stevie Wonder's Living For The City also did well. It reached #12 on the R & B Singles chart. The album was a big seller. It reached #2 on the Billboard hot 200. Troop was a group from California who had a couple of R & B hits like Spread My Wings and All I Think Of You. They faded in the mid-90s. Levert was led by Gerald and Sean Levert and their dad is O'Jays lead singer Eddie Levert Sr. So both groups were hot at the time. Queen Latifah had just become a big rap star. By 1993 she got into acting. Among those appearing on the New Jack City soundtrack were Ice-T, Guy, Johnny Gill and Keith Sweat. The soundtrack CD is available as a budget release. I guess the film New Jack City and the music is nostalgiac now. The film was controversial at the time. Here's the video for For The Love Of Money/Living For The City by Troop/Levert featuring Queen Latifah.
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