Keith Sweat – "I Want Her" (1987)

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Here he is live at the Apollo in 1988. Video from YouTube. I'm not affiliated with the artist. I just love this song.

New jack swing had arrived, and Keith Sweat was begging like nobody else could. Teddy Riley on the keys and that bounce in the drums. You know you tried to sing it. The whole Make It Last Forever album was a slow jam starter kit.

The story behind the song

Before he was a singer, Keith Sweat was a working man in a suit. The Harlem native started in a mail room at a Wall Street brokerage firm and worked his way up to a brokerage assistant on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. At night he was chasing music.

"I Want Her" was the first single from his debut album, Make It Last Forever, in 1987. He wrote and produced it with a young Teddy Riley, the man behind that new jack swing bounce. The song sat at number one on the R&B chart for three weeks and reached number 5 on the pop chart. It ended up the biggest R&B song of 1988.

The album sold around three million copies, and that pleading, begging style of his became Keith Sweat's trademark for years to come.

Find it on Keith Sweat's Make It Last Forever.

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Be honest. Did you try to sing this one in the mirror? Drop it in the comments. ✌️ — D-Train