Y’all remember the American artist with flamboyant, flashy appearance and colorful hairstyles: blond cornrows, a blond Mohawk. Those were his visual trademarks. It’s Sisqo guys! The image that the name brings to your mind at the mention right! “Ooh that dress so scandalous…All night long. Let me see that thong…” I know! Someone like Dimeji goes “Thong Song,”
I mean, “Thong Song” wasn’t just the hottest song in the country; it was one of the biggest club songs ever. You’d be hard-pressed to find another track that made people sprint to the dance floor the way “Thong Song” did when it was hot. I guess Sisqo was actually became a household name by the end of 2000.
Yeah right! Mark Althavan Andrews who is better known by his stage name Sisqó is an American R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and actor. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, US, on November 9, 1978 (40). Sisqo graduated from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School in 1994. According to his grandmother, he began singing when he was about 2 years old and at the age of 7 as the youngest member of the ‘Young Adult Choir’ at the church. Though his father unlike his mother was always critical of him and his music career but eventually became his biggest fan after his success.
Sisqó’s career began along with three of his mates when they formed ‘Dru Hill’ as a group.
He is the lead singer of R&B group. First, Sisqo had been a lead singer of the group Dru Hill, releasing two multi-platinum albums to date: Dru Hill (1996) and Enter the Dru (1998). The group had like 4 albums together: Dru Hill (1996), Enter the Dru (1998), Dru World Order (2002), InDRUpendence Day (2010) as well as hit songs such as ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ and ‘These Are the Times,’ in the late 1990s right before quit the group in 1999 to pursue a solo career.
He dropped his debut solo Unleash the Dragon in November 1999. In 2003, the album was certified sextuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping six million copies in North America. The album also garnered Sisqó two American Music Award nominations for Favorite Soul/R&B Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist. In addition he received three nominations including Best New Artist and Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2001. The album spans the hit songs “Got to Get It”, “Incomplete”, and “Thong Song”. Sisqó recorded the album during Dru Hill’s hiatus.
No 4: How Can I Love U 2nite (this song should’ve been a hit single. Music lover/critics have said it’s arguably the best record he’s ever created as a solo artist. The different ranges of his voice and the ad-libs were just incredible)
Return of Dragon- his second solo studio album was released on June 19, 2001. The album did very well on the charts but its singles, “Can I Live” and “Dance for Me”, were commercial disappointments compared to his debut album, Unleash the Dragon (1999). Despite the fact that Sisqó announced a third single, “Dream”, this never materialized due to the commercial failure of the album. The song “Without You” was originally planned to be featured on Dru Hill’s third album, Dru World Order but tensions grew between the group while working on the album and it was put on hold.
Return of Dragon was later certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for excess of one million copies. Return Of Dragon was deemed a commercial failure with no hit singles, but holds a million plus copies sold certification. Then, Last Dragon was dropped in 2015. Last Dragon is the third solo studio album by Sisqó of Dru Hill. The album was released on February 10, 2015. Previously in 2012, during a performance, Sisqó had announced he was working on this third album before it came through in 2015.
No 3: Got To Get It featuring Make It Hot (Peaked at #40 on 1.22.2000)
No 2: Thong Song Remix
Earlier in July 19 much.com reported Sisqo to have make a comeback from; actually we don’t know where he’s been for the last two decades. He was reported to have made the com back re-releasing his famous “Thong Song” track with a whole new beat. Much like the original version of the “Thong Song,” the new remix is an obvious smash.
One Finga: (off his unreleased album I guess). It’s a diss track to R. Kelly and and Nas in 2007. The beef actually stemmed from 2002’s Best Of Both Worlds, where R. Kelly threw shots first in an MTV’s interview, he felt a type of way for Sisqo to be running around claiming he ran R&B. Sisqo fired back at him and Nas a few months later, but it didn’t make sense for it to happen again in 2007.
ALBUMS
Solo albums: Unleash the Dragon (1999), Return of Dragon (2001), Last Dragon (2015)
Mixtape albums: Dragon Music[16] (2008), The Return of the Dragon (2010)
Compilation albums: 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of Sisqó (2006), Extended Play albums: Thong Song – Best Of – EP (2013),Unreleased albums: The Last Dragon (2008/2012)
AWARDS won and nominated for the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, Grammy Awards, MOBO Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, Soul Train Music Awards
NO 1: Thong Song
(won Best Hip-Hop Video at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000,. Soul Train Music Awards in 2000 Choice R&B/Hip-Hop Track. Grammy Awards nominated at the Grammy Awards in 2001 for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song. Other nominations include American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and MOBO Awards Etc)
FACTS
– Sisqo’s successful debut solo album, Unleash the Dragon (1999) is a masterpiece. The type of album you can pull up on any day and it sounds amazing. Another song that was great off this album is “Incomplete”. It’s about a guy who literally had everything but without the girl his life would be incomplete”
– So, what really happened with Sisqo’s career? The explanation comes from an interview he did with Noisey earlier in 2015 according to medium.com (an international website) quoting Sisqo “A lot of the decisions I made in terms of people not seeing me in the mainstream anymore were the sacrifices I had to make to achieve anything. At the end of the day, the core of what I want is to make good music. But I think you can get to a level where the business interferes with the music. With the exception of a few artists, now it’s all quantity over quality…
– Well, Siqso has kept himself out of the spotlight for over a decade for only reasons he can truly understand. Perhaps he could’ve been one of the greatest R&B artists.
– In 2016, he opened a store named ‘The Thong Bong’ on Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles. The store specialized in ladies undergarments and marijuana accessories. It was later shut down due to copyright issues; reportedly to be re-open in last year
– He also got married to his long time lover Elizabeth Pham on 17th August 2018.
