Lumidee - Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)

August 18, 2013 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

So Lumidee's only hit to date in many countries, so of course I was going to review this song as my Sunday Revisit, since she is set to make a comeback, we hope. Her full name is Lumidee Cedeño and has released a fair few other singles, which never gained much interest. She is still a one hit wonder, and returning to this track, like many others before me, has revealed that she wasn't that great of a singer as I remembered, but who needs to be a good singer if you have the right song, you can conquer. Especially since her comeback has shown she's a great rapper. Check out her new song, which vs. Fatman Scoop: "Dance 2013", it has to be a hit right?

"Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)" was written by Lumidee Cedeño, Teddy Mendez, Edwin Perez, Steven Marsden, Trevor Smith and John Jackson. The latter two are the real names of the people who feature in this song and those are Busta Rhymes and Fabolous respectively. I am not sure why they aren't officially featured. I guess they wanted to market Lumidee's first track and features wasn't quite so popular as it is now, however Lumidee only got to number two in the UK with this back in 2003, being beaten by Blu Cantrell Featuring Sean Paul "Breathe". I could've sworn this got to the top spot here, but clearly she got a lot of money from this track, since she has come back looking well off. Some people do say that all it takes is one hit song.

This video is definitely old school. The video I have found doesn't show it off that well, and I'm pretty sure there are probably better videos of this music video about. But ignoring the whole picture quality this is a video from the streets, where Lumidee is from.

There is a narrative and a performance piece, along with various dance sequences mixed in with the scenes. This adds to the video a lot.

The performance side is good, Lumidee is just going about her day walking through the crowd as if it is any other day, it's like she's not even aware of the camera and we're just part of the crowd, she is very much a natural. I love Busta Rhymes' rap it works well and he is really getting into this song, the way he is moving and you just know he is happy to be there... Whereas Fabolous... Well he's trying to not be there, hiding under his cap not even moving, as if he's extremely nervous and then when it's his turn to rap his head pops up and it looks like he's thinking 'Is it my turn now?', he soon raps and once he's finished he starts to loosen up a bit. I think they should've helped him to relax more, I hope he has improved from that day.

The narrative side links in well with the song, there's a love interest who is played by J. D. Williams, who has featured in many music videos these are Aaliyah's "Miss You", Freeway's "What We Do", Mariah Carey's "Through The Rain", Cam'Ron's "Lord You Know", Fabolous' "Breathe", Tupac Shakur's "Ghetto Gospel", Mario's "How Could You" and Prodigy's "Stuck On You". Quite the music video actor isn't he. Not much really happens with them two, but you can tell that they were together and there's still feelings between them.

The dancing is really good, and a lot of work was put in to nail all of it. I feel it would have been better to have seen Lumidee take part too, like we wanted Rita Ora to dance in the song "Hot Right Now" by DJ fresh, which she features on. The choreography is on point, and although we don't see all that much of it, it still stands out, and reminds me of the dancing in Step Up and it's sequels. This song would have been perfect for it's soundtrack.

Overall a song that I still like today even though her vocals aren't so great. This song is definitely a guilty pleasure, one of those ones that you still like even though you haven't heard it in ages, and you still know most of the lyrics (much to my embarrassment). The music video, relates, is funny (especially at Fabolous' expense) and was released at the right time. The song should've been number one here in the UK, and I hope Lumidee manages to make a worthy comeback, I am still waiting for that amazing day.