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Robin Thicke
This next artist who blew up in 2007 is one Clizbeats Productions, Inc is proud to say we saw coming. Clizbeats featured artist, Robin Thicke’s 2007 was the year that changed his life! It was a year since the release of Thicke’s lead off single from his current album, The Evolution Of Robin Thicke, a Neptunes produced club song, “Wanna Love U Girl.” (“Wannna Love U Girl lead single from The Evolution Of Robin Thicke originally released by Star Trak/Interscope on 8/9/2005). When Thicke’s album was not getting attention off of the first single due to varying album release dates and problems with general album promotion, Interscope Records released his ballad, “Lost Without U.” It was done as a last effort to turn on new fans to the Robin Thicke sound. “Lost Without U” was considered by many critics, fans, and Interscope employees to be closer to the genuine Robin Thicke sound than his collaboration with The Neptunes in 2005. So on a last effort to help present Thicke as the talented singe/song writer that he is, “Lost Without U” was released in early 2007.
Surprising to all involved with his project, Robin’s soulful sound was embraced by the Urban R&B/Soul community. Thicke went from being an artists barley hanging on to his record contract, to one of the most in demand singer/song writers in R&B music in a short amount of months. He was one of the few R&B artists critically embraced who would also enjoy equal commercial success that year. “Lost Without U” had began to grow his audience so much by February of 2007 that Star Trak/Interscope Records released a deluxe edition of his now platinum sophomore album, The Evolution Of Robin Thicke. It was at that time when Robin had the #1 R&B album and single on all Urban charts all at the same time.
His growing fan base prompted many of his songs to also receive radio airplay by aggressive demand of his supporters. In fact his duet with Faith Evans, “Got 2 Be Down” became an Urban Top 20 hit strictly by fan support and without record label promotion. Soon Robin became the first caucasian musician to top the R&B AC chart since George Michael in the 1980s. This is quite an accomplishment considering he is a white soul artists with a majority of exclusively African American listeners. This is all done while lacking the mainstream support that other white R&B artists like Justin Timberlake and Michael McDonald have had in years past.
The official follow up single to his smash “Lost Without U” was later released in March of 2007. the follow up was his Gospel inspired piano ballad, “Can U Believe.” Although not as successful as “Lost Without U” in the mainstream, “Can U Believe” enjoyed top 10 airplay success on the Urban AC chart, thanks to its heavy video rotation on BET networks. He was also embraced by Oprah as one of her favorite musicians of the year, appearing multiple times on her show to interview and perform. The combination of his touring and TV and radio appearances pushed his sales to over platinum status domestically. He is now viewed as one of the most talented singer/song writers in modern R&B along side his peers like John Legend and Alicia Keys. That's not too bad for a guy who was almost dropped by his record label right?
