"Differences" is an R&B song by American singer

Ginuwine Elgin Baylor Lumpkin (born October 15, 1970), better known by his stage name Ginuwine, is an American Contemporary R&B, R&B singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. He began his career as a member of Swing Mob in the early 1990s. Signing to Epic R ...

. It was written by the artist alongside producer

Troy Oliver Troy Oliver is an American multi-instrumentalist, record producer and songwriter born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. He wrote and produced "Jenny from the Block" and " I’m Real" for Jennifer Lopez, and " Differences" for Ginuwine ...

and recorded for his third studio album, '' The Life'' (2001). Released as the album's second single, the ballad spent four weeks at number-one on the US

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by '' Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 ...

chart and peaked at number four on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It was ranked at number 50 and number 68 in the 2001 and 2002 on ''Billboard'' Year-End lists, respectively, and was eventually certified gold by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA). American rapper Pop Smoke sampled the song on his hit track released in 2020, "

What You Know Bout Love "What You Know Bout Love" is a song by American rapper and singer Pop Smoke from his posthumous debut studio album, ''Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon'' (2020) as well as the EP ''Mood Swings'' (2020). The song was written by Pop Smoke, al ...

Background

"Differences" was written by Ginuwine along with

, while production was helmed by the latter. In an interview with ''

Blogcritics Blogcritics is a blog network and online magazine of news and opinion. The site was founded in 2002 by Eric Olsen and Phillip Winn. Blogcritics features more than 100 original articles every week, and maintains an archive of all its published con ...

'', Ginuwine commented on the background to the track: "That song was really during a time when I was going through a depressed state because of my dad and my mom had passed. We're writing a whole bunch of songs ..I said, "I'm going to write a song about

y wife Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or sevent ...

" and it happened to be a song that a lot of people wanted to sing to their wives when they were getting married. It's just one of those songs that will always be here. I'm just happy I'm the one that did it."

Chart performance

Released as the second single from ''The Life'', "Differences" peaked at number one on the US

chart in the week ending October 6, 2001, becoming his second single to do so. A precedent on the chart, it became the first track on the chart to reach the summit without a physical single being available at retail in an configuration.

Music video

A music video for "Differences" was directed by

Hype Williams Harold Williams (born August 1, 1970) is an American music video director, film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Early life Williams was born in Queens, New York. He is of mixed African-American and Honduran descent. He attended Adel ...

. A

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wor ...

-heavy clip, Ginuwine elaborated on the video shooting in an interview with ''

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'': "Actually, the game plan going into he shootwas otalk to God. Williams was like, 'Look man this gotta be heartfelt. People gotta know you mean this.' He was saying, 'The only way they're gonna know you're meaning it is if you close your eyes and you just talk to God.' I was very skeptical about it 'cause I was just

n front of N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

a green screen all day. I just had to imagine – he was just telling me what is gonna be where."

Track listing

Notes * denotes additional producer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

Music video at MTV.com
2001 singles Ginuwine songs Music videos directed by Hype Williams 2000 songs Songs written by Ginuwine Songs written by Troy Oliver Contemporary R&B ballads {{2000s-R&B-song-stub