Song #811: "No Diggity" by Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dre and Queen Pen

Date: Nov 9, 1996
Weeks: 4

Now here's a song that creates a pleasing sound from a handful of samples, a couple guest rappers, and a group of good singers.

The music is the best part of this, and it's little more than a couple of repeating drum, piano, and voice samples. The piano in particular really works. I love the little low-note roll that happens regularly. It's like a period at the end of a musical sentence, ending one idea and moving on to the next. There's just enough variety in the song that the music manages to avoid wearing itself out by the end. And it only takes a small thing, like a pause in the track or a shift in the vocals, to create a sufficient impression of variety.



The singing in this song is quite good. Every singer takes his turn and sings half a verse, and all their voices are pretty nice. They're all very talented, and their voices match well with the music. At the time, Boyz II Men was all over the charts and there seemed to be a lot of acts trying to copy their generally a capella style. I like that these guys decided to do something very different, and they're very successful for carving out their own niche like that.


The rap verses by Dr. Dre at the beginning and Queen Pen at the end are also really good. Rap is always at its best when placed atop compelling background music like this, and Dr. Dre has one of the best rap voices I know. He's perfect here. Queen Pen isn't quite as good as Dr. Dre, and some of her rhythm feels forced, but she's still good overall. This is a great mixture of rap, singing, and music.

The lyrics are interesting. It seems like the song's premise can be summed up in its efforts to coin the term "playette," which seems to mean a female player. She sleeps around and gets what she wants, and the singer of this song admires her for it. He more than just admires her, he wants to get with her and be one of her conquests. I'm more than a bit impressed to hear such a sentiment in a hip-hop and rap song. These are genres not known for feminism, and yet here's this song being positively feminist by declaring that a woman who declares sexual independence is a "playette," rather than some of the nastier words that are often thrown at such women. Good for this song for advancing such a notion. It's a shame this sentiment hasn't caught on in these genres in the subsequent 15 years.

My verdict: Like it. I never would have discovered I liked this song if I hadn't done this list. Good stuff.