"Take Me There" is a song by American quartet Blackstreet and singer

Mya Mya may refer to: Brands and product names * Mya (program), an intelligent personal assistant created by Motorola * Mya (TV channel), an Italian Television channel * Midwest Young Artists, a comprehensive youth music program Codes * Burmese ...

, featuring Bad Boy rappers Mase and

Blinky Blink Harlem World was an American hip hop group founded by Mase that was signed to Jermaine Dupri's So So Def. The group consisted of seven members: Mase's sister Baby Stase (Stason Betha), Blinky Blink, Cardan, Huddy (Andre Hudson), Meeno, Suga J, a ...

. It was written by Mase, Michael Foster, Madeline Nelson,

Tamara Savage Tamara Savage is an American songwriter born in 1979 in California, who started writing songs in 1998 at the age of 19. She has written for Tamia, Monica, Faith Evans, Nicole Wray, Mary Mary, Heather Headley, Shanice, Whitney Houston, Mýa and Tr ...

and Teddy Riley. Riley also produced the song. The song serves as the theme song for the animated feature film '' The Rugrats Movie'' and was released on November 30, 1998, as the lead and only single from the soundtrack. It also appeared on Blackstreet's third studio album, '' Finally''. "Take Me There" reached 1 in New Zealand for three weeks in January 1999 and achieved platinum status for selling over 10,000 copies there. In North America, the song peaked at No. 14 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and No. 21 on the Canadian ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' Top Singles chart. It also became a hit in several European nations, peaking at No. 7 in the United Kingdom, No. 9 in Ireland, and No. 22 in the Netherlands.

Background

Blackstreet initially became involved with '' The Rugrats Movie'' (1998) and its soundtrack after finding out that they were

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

s favorite R&B group. Looking for other ways to tap into what was popular with children, Teddy Riley enlisted the help of Mýa and Mase. Riley explained, "It would appeal to the kids, and to get a more... broader audience of the kids, it would be great to have Mýa and Mase." This collaboration resulted in the song "Take Me There", which Riley produced, incorporating the '' Rugrats'' theme song. Backstage at the

MTV Video Music Awards The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honour the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category) ...

, Mýa talked about the collaboration, saying, "We knocked it out in one day. Kids came to the studio o hear the song and they were listening to the song and they were just singing right along, because

he song He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

rings a bell when you first hear it."

Composition

"Take Me There" is a pop-rap and R&B song with a soft melody. It runs for four minutes and four seconds. The full-length version, including the instrumental section, is five minutes and two seconds. It contains interpolations of the original ''Rugrats'' TV theme, which was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh (uncredited).

Music video

The music video premiered in October 1998. The video starts with cartoon character

Angelica Pickles ''Rugrats'' includes a large array of characters: family, friends, extended relatives, townspeople, and fictional characters. This is a list of characters from the Nickelodeon animated television series (original), its various movies, and the 2 ...

turning on the television to a clip of the Rugrats pulling the Reptar Wagon up a hill. The clip used appears to be the deleted scene "The Rugrats March". It takes place in a realistic live-action version of the Pickles' house, with

Mýa Mya Marie Harrison (; born October 10, 1979), (stylized as Mýa), is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. Born into a musical family, she studied ballet, jazz, and tap dance as a child. Initially, Mýa began her career as a VJ ...

and Blackstreet dancing through the house. Mýa is seen in

Tommy Pickles Thomas Malcolm Pickles is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated children's television series ''Rugrats,'' the reboot, and its spinoff series '' All Grown Up!''. He is also the protagonist of ''The Rugrats Movie'' (1998) and ' ...

's bedroom, the members of Blackstreet are seen in the kitchen, and Mase and

are seen driving the

Reptar Reptar is a fictional character from the American animated television series ''Rugrats''. It is a green '' T. rex'' (and sometimes appears in red-violet and lilac) with rounded, blue spike-like appendages on his back, which intentionally causes ...

Wagon against a background of a scene from the film. As the video ends, Angelica turns the television off. The video premiered as a part of Blackstreet and Mýa's hosting of SNICK, and was directed by Luke Nola and Steve Saussey.

Reception

The single entered the US ''

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chart on December 5, 1998, peaking at No. 14 on January 23, 1999. It reached No. 10 on ''Billboard''s Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. Internationally, it reached the top 10 in Ireland and the United Kingdom, and the top 20 in Japan. It also reached the top spot in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and was certified platinum by the

Recording Industry Association of New Zealand Recorded Music NZ (formerly the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ)) is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell recorded music in New Zealand. Membership of Recorded Mus ...

. In 2014, Billboard ranked "Take Me There" in its "Top 50 Forgotten Gems From the Now! Series", which list songs from the series that were underrated at the time of their release.

Chart performance

''The Rugrats Movie'' soundtrack was awarded a platinum certification in the United States for selling over one million copies. While the film's website credits sales to the strength of the major-label artists who participated, chart positions and sales correlate directly to the heavy promotions for the feature film's November 20, 1998, US release. "Take Me There (Want U Back Mix)," which interpolates " I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5, peaked at No. 27 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 on December 19, 1998, after three weeks on the chart. That same day it made its way onto the top 40. During the week of December 7, 1998, "Take Me There" peaked at No. 13 on the Hits of the World board in the United Kingdom. The song landed on No. 19 of the Video Monitor, the most-played clips as monitored by the Broadcast Data Systems, via its airtime on

BET Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...

. It also did very well on the

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

playlists, peaking at No. 21 in the same week. It was also well liked in The Clip List, making its debut on the Box Tops, and was played about 15 hours weekly on the California Music Channel (CMC). ''Sound Tracks'' noted its popularity: The movie's success helped the soundtrack stay at No. 20 on the Billboard 200 chart for five weeks.

Remixes

A remix which samples the Jackson 5's number-one hit " I Want You Back" was issued promotionally to radio stations and was made commercially available on a CD single in the United Kingdom. This version did not appear in the film and was not included on the soundtrack. It also appears on Blackstreet's album '' Finally''; this version omits Mase and Blinky Blink, possibly because their verses primarily revolve around the Rugrats characters. A second remix, "Take Me There (Thugrats Remix)" appears on the " Girlfriend/Boyfriend" single featuring new verses from Mase and Blinky Blink.

Track listing

# "Take Me There" (radio version) – 4:01 # "Take Me There" (Want U Back mix) – 4:00 # "Take Me There" (album version) – 5:04 # "Take Me There" (instrumental) – 5:01

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

External links

music video
at vodpod * http://www.rugratonline.com/rrmovi2c.htm * http://www.tv.com/sister-sister/freaknik/episode/59858/summary.html?tag=ep_guide;summary {{DEFAULTSORT:Take Me There (Blackstreet Song) 1998 singles 1998 songs 1999 singles Blackstreet songs Interscope Records singles Mase songs Mýa songs Number-one singles in New Zealand Song recordings produced by Teddy Riley Songs written by Mase Songs written by Tamara Savage Songs written by Teddy Riley Songs written for films