When I thought about bringing the question of Jodeci’s best song to the masses (and boy did I, but I’ll get there), I didn’t realize I was asking people to choose between Martin and Malcolm.

Hell, I didn’t realize I was asking who’s the greatest: Jay-Z, Biggie, or Nas (and Tupac, ya know, just because)?

Shucks, who knew that asking a large group of Black people (and some white and Latino people) what Jodeci’s best song was would essentially be the most difficult decision of our lives? To hell with the President, that’s easy. AIDS: to know or not to know? Well, duh…take the test dummy. You say you have to be at work tomorrow at 7am but you’d REALLY like to take make that booty call because it’s been a few months since you’ve had some but the sex wasn’t that great but mediocre sex is better than no sex, so should you make the call? No brainer…of course.

But Jodeci? I feel like I asked people to smack their mothers with rusty barnacles and a box of Hi-Liters…the orange ones.

In fact, to illustrate just how hard a question this was (you can read some of the comments from yesterday) here are some text messages I received:

“Lately…all day. My 2nd choice is Freekn”

Wait 2 seconds…text from the same person:

“I changed my mind, I want to go with Feenin”

Sheesh…and that was the first text I received in response to my question. So what was to follow?

“who is jodeci?” ~ I told her that if she wasn’t joking we could never get married…amazing how quickly she provided me a response.

“I always liked Feenin…but the Freeknu Remix was good also. To tell you the truth, I can’t choose…there are a lot that I like” ~ sounds about consistent with what I’d heard and more tame too; one of my friend’s called me Satan for making her have to do this type of heavy thinking at work…she’s a systems engineer.

“Hmm…how much time do I have?” ~ Apparently this isn’t a snap decision type of question. True and honest thought must be used to determine the answer. If only black people could be this focused and careful in every other decision. Shoot, that could have saved us from D4L at the very least.

“i don’t want them to get back together, but the first song that pops into my head is ‘forever my lady’ but i think i like ‘luv u for life’ more…actually, just shoot me now because I can’t decide.” ~ That wasn’t a text, that was actually a conversation I had with a chick while I was standing in line at Quizno’s. I figured that since she was young and Black she’d probably have an opinion. She did. And no I didn’t try to holler at her; she ordered some kind of weird sandwich. Eww.

“that’s like asking to pick ur favorite child! I won’t do it! Damn u…lol! I’m still waiting remix” ~ Now you see what happened there? Psychoanalytically, she went through four stages: Indecisive to outright defiance to reluctant deference to acceptance. I mean she’s still wrong. Hmm, is it a problem if when she said that I was like, they had a remix for “I’m Still Waiting”?

I asked one of my friends if she thought this was the most difficult question in the Black community to which she texted back:

“lol yo it just might be. When have you ever known xxx to not have an answer. And those last 2 votes? The niggas literally burst into song as an answer.” ~ When was the last time anybody answered a question about Martin Luther King, Jr with an excerpt from his “I Have A Dream” speech? Hmmm?? Hmmm??

You get the point here. Obviously I was a little bit cavalier in how light I took this question and situation. And to complicate matters even further…

…I asked people at the line to get into the club last night. I specifically stayed at the door for a while just to ask. And do you know why this is a problem? Because I had do an impromptu performance of a good 8 of Jodeci’s songs as one patron was trying to decide and she needed to hear them.

So I sang them, which caused other people to start singing their songs. Yeah so, we started a mini-concert outside for a little while. Except none of us can sing. But a crackhead did show up, so it felt more like K-Ci was there in spirit at least. Oh, Devante too. He’s clearly on that shit.

Then, to make it even worse, I had the DJ play the “Come and Talk To Me (Remix)” in the club (though he didn’t actually play it until a rather attractive young lady accompanied me to the DJ booth demanding that it be played since she thinks its the best Jodeci song). The host for the evening went around asking people if it was the best Jodeci song which was followed up the the “Freek NU (Remix)” which just shut shit down. That damn Jodeci, man they made great music.

Sidenote: Have you ever saw, developed a crush and then lost the same crush all in the course of a night? That happened to me last night. I met this chick who I’d apparently seen at least a gazillion times and I caught the biggest crush on her. She’s hot, smiles, and just seems like a genuinely nice person. Then I found out she was engaged. I totally lost the crush. Shit was over just as soon as it started. She’s still hot though…jeez Louise is she hot.

So now we get to decision time…according to the over 250 people that were polled via text message, personal interview, and Internet means, what is the best Jodeci song?

*drumroll*

“Come And Talk To Me (Original)” was voted the best song with the majority of about 35 votes.

However, my personal pick “Freek NU” was a VERY close second with around 33 votes, followed by “Forever My Lady” (27 votes), “Feenin’” (25), “Love You For Life” (21), “Stay” (20), “Come And Talk To Me (Remix)” (20), “Cry For You” -which is my second choice for best song- had (19).

Everything else had 15 votes or less, to include: “Stay”, “My Heart Belongs To You”, Freek NU (Remix)”, “U and I”, “What About Us?”, “Lately” and “I’m Still Waiting (Original and Remix)”

I’d like to thank and apologize to everybody for all of the grief I put them through by asking people to pick the best Jodeci song. I’m sure that quite a few side conversations were spawned because of this out in the real world. Heck, a few people actually came up to me in the club wanting to change their prior answer.

The only thing this proves to me is that there really is no best Jodeci song. There was no clear winner and damn near 12 songs were name-checked by people which only leads me to believe that Jodeci’s catalog is just that good. They’re all great songs. Hell most people couldn’t actually just name even one song. It was always, well I think “this” and “that” are the best songs.

Bottom line, Jodeci is that shit and Boyz II Men can’t touch them.

Yeah, I said it…who the f**k want what??!?!!!!

Oh, and my friend’s choice was “Forever My Lady” or “Stay” so technically…I won. She will disagree. And because she’s a woman, she will be right.

I think I’ve figured out this whole man vs. woman thing.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 9:42 am and is filed under Learn Ya Somethin', Musicology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.