There isn’t a Black woman alive who didn’t turn on R&B hummingbird Tweet’s timelessly sexy anthems “Oops (Oh My!)” and “Turn Da Lights Off” whenever it was time to set the mood or to get dressed for a party in the early 2000s. Shoot, some of us still have those songs in rotation.
Though her two soul-enriching albums, Southern Hummingbird (2002) and It’s Me Again (2005) were the soundtracks to countless hearts, the success didn’t necessarily translate on the charts.
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Born Charlene Keys, Tweet’s second album didn’t do so well on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at no. 17 before its eventual disappearance. Needless to say, this was disappointing to Tweet after her first album debuted at no. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart.
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Simultaneously, the business side of the industry threw its share of punches at the Rochester, N.Y native, as well. She bounced from label to label after record deals went awry and one label owner died.
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Today, as Tweet celebrates the release of her third full-length album Charlene, she remembers how stress fueled her habitual drinking and smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, leading to her 10-year hiatus from music.
“I just knew that I wasn’t happy,” Tweet said during her interview at Blackdoctor.org. “I did have suicidal thoughts at times. I didn’t want to be around anybody because I felt like nobody could help.”
