Watching the recent Bad Boy Reunion Concert on the Today Show brought back many jiggy memories of yesteryear when the label launched by a lanky kid, called Puff Daddy, created music that became the soundtracks to our lives. From day one, with the debuts of Craig Mack and The Notorious B.I.G, the Bad Boy roster prided itself on creating the perfect synthesis of street beats and, with the remixes of “Flava in Ya Ear” and “One More Chance,” soul sensibilities and club banger power. Throughout the decade, whether in the spot, hanging on the block, or watching videos at the crib, a bangin’ Bad Boy track by Faith (“Soon As I Get Home”), Total (“Can’t You See”), 112 (“Cupid”), or The LOX (“Money Power Respect”) was bound to be blaring from somebody’s speakers.

Bad Boy spread their buttery Hitmen-produced sound across the world, cultivating a lifestyle aesthetic that spread beyond the borders of pop music as their (mostly) young fans tried to emulate Puff and company’s lavish taste in expensive clothes, cars, and cocktails. While some people saw the glam videos and records as preaching materialism, in 1997, Puffy Daddy and producer Stevie J (yes, that Stevie J) decided to balance that message with the creation of the label’s first gospel album Thank You.

For old school Bad Boy Records enthusiasts like me, Thank You remains one of most interesting “lost albums” of the ghetto fabulous generation. Describing “lost” as music that was recorded but, for whatever reasons, never released, Thank You joins D’Angelo’s much anticipated James River and Dr. Dre’s much-hyped Detox as one of the great “what if’s” in contemporary Black music. Spearheaded by Diddy’s spiritual advisor, Hezekiah Walker, the timing was perfect for Bad Boy to do its own contemporary R&B gospel album. After all, this was 1996 when artists like CeCe Winans (Alone In His Presence) and Kirk Franklin (Whatcha Lookin' 4) were topping the charts and winning Grammys. Thank You was supposed to include B.I.G., Faith, Tanya Blount, Brandy, Carl Thomas, John P. Kee, Brian McKnight, Boys II Men and Total.

Originally scheduled to drop in the summer of 1997, after the sudden murder of B.I.G. on March 9, 1997, and the launch of the best-selling No Way Out (Puff Daddy & the Family) album and tour, Thank You was shelved indefinitely. In 2001, Bad Boy revisited the project and removed former label artists The LOX and Tanya Blount, replacing them with Thelma Guyton and Joe, however that version of Thank You also was shelved. Although never officially released, many of the tracks slanted for Thank You, including the collabo first single “You,” was released in some form on other projects.


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