Peak
8
Weeks
23
Score
3,790
Chart Year
1992
This is a variation on the song Everyday People by Sly & The Family Stone. Arrested Development lead vocalist Speech wrote this song. He says of the lyrical content: "It came from real life experiences. At that time I lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is where I was born. And Milwaukee, essentially, back in those days, was a very conservative town. And a lot of the black people there really were not into cultural black... they understood they were black, but for them black was jheri-curls, it was pimping, and that's what they thought black culture was mainly about. For me having experienced more in Atlanta and having traveled a little bit more, I'd come to understand that black culture had a lot more to do with Africa, and it was different hairstyles that we could express ourselves with, like dreadlocks and braids. So I would dress like that, and a lot of the people around me in Milwaukee would sort of mock it. And so the song was really just talking about this tension between one concept of culture and another concept of culture." Although it had the same lyrics and structure, the album version of this song is not the one that was a hit. Says Speech: "I would later do a remix of the song once we decided to release it as a single. I felt a little insecure about putting out a single without me rhyming in a sing-song style, because certain people liked this sort of new way I was rapping which had more melody as opposed to just rapping without using melody. So I was really afraid, I wanted to try my hand at making 'People Everyday' a more melodic type of delivery instead of the regular delivery. And so I did a remix and sampled a Bob James record ("Tappan Zee") for the general groove, added some beats to it, and that that was the version of that song that everybody knows about. It was actually a remix." (Check out our full interview with Speech.)
See I was resting at the park minding my own Business as I kick up the treble tone On my radio tape player box, right Just loud enough so folks could hear it's hype, see? Outta nowhere comes the woman I'm dating Investigation maybe she was demonstrating But nevertheless I was pleased My day was going great and my soul was at ease Until a group of brothers started bugging out Drinking the 40 oz, going the nigga route Disrespecting my black queen Holding their crotches and being obscene At first I ignored them cause see I know their type They got drunk and got guns and they wanna fight And they see a young couple having a time that's good And their egos wanna test a brother's manhood So they came to test Speech cause of my hair-do And the loud bright colors that I wear I was a target cause I'm a fashion misfit And the outfit that I'm wearing brothers dissing it Well I stay calm and pray the niggas leave me be But they're squeezing parts of my date's anatomy Why, Lord, do brothers have to drill me? Cause if I start to hit this man he'll have to kill me I am everyday people I told the niggas please let us pass, friend I said please cause I don't like killing Africans But he wouldn't stop and I ain't Ice Cube But I had to take the brother out for being rude And like I said before I was mad by then It took three or four cops to pull me off of him But that's the story y'all of a black man Acting like a nigga and get stomped by an African I am everyday people
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 15, 1992 | 82 | 44 |
| 2 | Aug 22, 1992 | 47 | 79 |
| 3 | Aug 29, 1992 | 36 | 90 |
| 4 | Sep 5, 1992 | 25 | 101 |
| 5 | Sep 12, 1992 | 21 | 105 |
| 6 | Sep 19, 1992 | 19 | 107 |
| 7 | Sep 26, 1992 | 14 | 112 |
| 8 | Oct 3, 1992 | 13 | 113 |
| 9 | Oct 10, 1992 | 8 | 118 |
| 10 | Oct 17, 1992 | 10 | 116 |
| 11 | Oct 24, 1992 | 9 | 117 |
| 12 | Oct 31, 1992 | 10 | 116 |
| 13 | Nov 7, 1992 | 14 | 112 |
| 14 | Nov 14, 1992 | 19 | 107 |
| 15 | Nov 21, 1992 | 20 | 106 |
| 16 | Nov 28, 1992 | 23 | 103 |
| 17 | Dec 5, 1992 | 27 | 99 |
| 18 | Dec 12, 1992 | 34 | 92 |
| 19 | Dec 19, 1992 | 34 | 92 |
| 20 | Dec 26, 1992 | 36 | 90 |