The 100 Pop Songs of the New Millennium, 2005
Blu Cantrell
An R&B singer from Providence, Rhode Island, whose first single in 2001 is one of the records Cove counted among the hundred most-played pop songs of the decade so far. Her recorded career, as MusicBrainz lists it, lasts four years.
The Cove archive desk · Compiled October 2026
On Cove’s list
In 2005 Cove compiled The 100 Pop Songs of the New Millennium, a chart the magazine said measures the most radio aired and video played pop singles from the year 2000 through to now
. The method used video plays on BET, CMT, Fuse, MTV and VH1 and the national radio charts. The page is stamped updated, tuesday march 1sr, 2005
. “Hit em up Style, Blu Cantrell” is on it, spelled that way.
We do not give its position. On the archived page several entries run together on one line, so an entry’s place in the text cannot be read as its rank. What the page establishes is inclusion, by a stated method, four years after release.
At a glance
| Act | Solo artist |
|---|---|
| Origin | Providence, United States |
| Releases on MusicBrainz | 9 release groups, 2001–2004 |
| Earliest dated release listed | Hit ’em Up Style (Oops!) (2001, single) |
| Label on that release | Arista |
| In Cove’s archive | The 100 Pop Songs of the New Millennium (2005) |
Releases
| First released | Title | Type | Label on first release |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Hit ’em Up Style (Oops!) | Single | Arista |
| 2001-01-18 | So Blu | Album | Arista |
| 2002 | Breathe | Single | Arista |
| 2003 | Breathe / One More Time (Remixes) | Single (remix) | Camouflage Recordings DnB |
| 2003-01-01 | Shades of Blu (The Definitive Collection) | Album (compilation) | So Blu, LLC. |
| 2003-06-23 | Bittersweet | Album | Arista, BMG, RedZone Entertainment |
| 2003-12-01 | Make Me Wanna Scream | Single | not listed |
| 2004-01-01 | From L.A. to L.O. | Album (mixtape/street) | Northstarr Entertainment |
The single and the album share 2001. MusicBrainz dates So Blu to 18 January 2001 and lists the single “Hit ’em Up Style (Oops!)” under that year, and its track appears on the album. Wikipedia describes the song as her debut single and says it appeared on the debut album. Both records carry Arista.
The second album and after
Bittersweet followed on 23 June 2003, again on Arista, with BMG and RedZone Entertainment also credited. Wikipedia names “Breathe”, featuring Sean Paul, as a single from it. MusicBrainz lists “Breathe” as a 2002 single, plus 2003 remix editions. It also records a definitive-collection compilation in 2003 on So Blu, LLC. The last entry is a 2004 mixtape, From L.A. to L.O., on Northstarr Entertainment. That is the last release under her name in MusicBrainz.
Wikipedia records Grammy nominations for “Hit ’em Up Style” and for Bittersweet. It also reports chart positions, which we do not reproduce here because this page cites no chart source of its own.
What the record shows
Two studio albums, a compilation and a mixtape in four years, then nothing further documented. That brevity is why a page like this is useful: the career behind the song fits in one table. Cove’s list caught it at the midpoint, after the hit and before the last release. The same list includes two other acts profiled here, Dream and O-Town, both with debut albums released in January 2001.
So Blu, track by track
On the US release in MusicBrainz, “Hit ’em Up Style (Oops!)” is track 2, in a version labelled as the remix radio mix.
| # | Track | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Waste My Time | 3:45 |
| 2 | Hit 'em Up Style (Oops!) [remix radio mix] | 4:10 |
| 3 | Till I'm Gone | 4:21 |
| 4 | U Must B Crazy | 4:07 |
| 5 | The One | 3:31 |
| 6 | I'll Find a Way | 5:15 |
| 7 | Swingin' | 3:58 |
| 8 | 10,000 Times | 4:25 |
| 9 | When I Needed You | 3:49 |
| 10 | All You Had to Say | 4:22 |
| 11 | I Can't Believe | 3:37 |
| 12 | So Blu | 4:14 |
| 13 | Blu Is a Mood | 5:23 |
Discography data: MusicBrainz (CC0), checked 26 October 2026. Dates are first-release dates as MusicBrainz records them; a release it does not list is not shown here. Background not held by MusicBrainz was confirmed against Wikipedia, checked 26 October 2026.
Also in Cove’s archive: Jessica Harp · Dream · all the new artists in Cove’s archive · the archive home page