Song of the day for October 30, 2023
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Today’s song is Maria Maria by Santana ft. The Product G&B. This song is the 7th track for Santana’s eighteenth studio album Supernatural. On October 30, 1999 this album went to #1 in America giving them the first #1 album in 28 years.
The song was written by Wyclef Jean, Jerry “Wonda” Duplessis, Carlos Santana, Karl Perazzo, and Raul Rekow, while Jean and Duplessis produced it. The track samples the drum beat from “God Make Me Funky” by American jazz fusion band the Headhunters, and the melody riff was inspired by the Wu-Tang Clan song “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit”. Interspersed with guitars and other strings, “Maria Maria” is driven by a hip hop beat. At the 2000 Grammy Awards, the song won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals before it experienced commercial success.
“Maria Maria” was released on September 14, 1999, to American urban radio and was issued worldwide throughout the following year. It reached number one in Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. In the US, it stayed at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 10 weeks and reached number one on two other Billboard listings. In 2018, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Hot 100, Billboard compiled its list of the top songs since the ranking’s inception, on which “Maria Maria” appeared at number 122. The song’s success has inspired numerous sampling usages, plus a restaurant chain named after the track.
