That’s My Jam is a weekly feature where one person from the Selective Hearing staff goes to wax poetic about music that is pivotal to their musical tastes. Whether that would be an album, a song, or anything in-between. We all had to start somewhere.
Release Date: August 14, 2000
Track Listing
- Fill Me In
- Can’t Be Messing Round
- Rendezvous
- 7 Days
- Follow Me
- Last Night
- Walking Away
- Time To Party
- Booty Man
- Once In A Lifetime
- You Know What
- Rewind
Review
Craig David. A name that may be familiar to some R&B heads. The English singer/songwriter first rose to fame due to his 1999 collaboration Re-Rewind with UK Garage act Artful Dodger. A year after that single, he released his debut album, Born To Do It.
His debut single, Fill Me In, made him the youngest solo artist at the time to peak at number one on the UK singles chart. This also garnered him a high of 15 on the US Billboard charts. After listening to the track, it’s not hard to figure out why this hit big.
At its heart, Fill Me In is an R&B song but thanks to the skittering 2-Step beats and tempo changes from the verses to the chorus, it sounds fresher than the typical early 2000’s R&B fare. The rest of the singles from this album are more typical of the R&B sound. Of the bunch, 7 Days was the most successful worldwide, garnering him a Grammy nomination in 2003.
The song’s subject matter is not very subtle and talks mainly about a lot of fucking until Mr. David and his lady friend decide to “chill on Sunday.” The other release worth making note of is Walking Away. It shows a much softer side to Craig David with its uplifting and self-empowering lyrics.
The album cuts consist of a mix of smooth mid-tempo songs and bedroom boom soundtrack ballads. The only exception is Can’t Be Messing ‘Round which is the closest thing you’ll get to a pure club-styled track. Thankfully none of the remaining 7 tracks are filler and instead provide a solid sound bed of consistent songs that re-enforce the R&B groove. Sorry, but the whole 2-Step thing that started with Fill Me In was a clever rouse.
As you go through Born To Do It, you quickly realize this is all about the R&B groove. That may disappoint those expecting a full UK Garage/2-Step onslaught, but to be honest, that would have made this album a one-trick pony and aged it significantly these years later. So it’s good that many of these songs sound just as timeless as when they were first released to the world.
For the crate diggers out there, seek out the 4 singles released from this album, as there are gems of Hip-Hop and 2-Step remixes included on those packages. Most of them are out of print now but keep an eye out for them on your next excursion to your local record shop.
Here are a few of the better remixes to encourage your search.
