Ginuwine’s song “Pony” turns 20

Published August 20th 2016

On August 20th 1996, exactly 20 years ago today, the sound of R&B changed with this one song. Ginuwine’s “Pony” was released.

Ginuwine, The Batchelor

The song, written by Ginuwine, Static Major, and Timbaland, was not one of those R&B songs we would quickly forget. Timbaland, at that time, just breaking through with his work for Aaliyah’s second album, made his mark definite with the production he did on this track, and with this, laid the foundation of a whole new genre that would emerge: drum ‘n’ bass.

With the bass sounding like a burb, the song already had a musical hook, but the bluntly sexual advances of the lyrics gave it an extra dimension, that was becoming more and more common in the middle of the 90s. It turned Ginuwine into a sex symbol.

Jodeci’s Devante Swing originally discovered Ginuwine as a singer, who at that time was a dancer for breakdancing crew Finesse Five, and signed him to his label Swing Mob, also home to Timbaland, at the time. Just 4 years after the label was founded, it folded in 1995. Ginuwine and Timbaland then continued to work together. When “Pony” turned to a big hit, a year later, Jodeci wanted in on the action and used the backtrack for a remix of “Freek’n You”.

“Pony” not only received great feedback from press, it became a hit in many countries, but all that aside, the track managed to live on since and turn into a real R&B classic.

It has had the help a few big movies like “Wild Hogs”, who used it for a karaoke scene, and, just last year, it became the lead song for the last Magic Mike movie. Funny enough, Ginuwine himself played a role in a similar movie, “Chocolate City”, in the same year.

Beyond “Pony”

Ginuwine is one of the few R&B singers from his era, that has managed to keep his music career going non-stop. Since 1996, he has released 7 solo albums over the years, 1 album as a member of the supergroup TGT (with Tank and Tyrese) and there’s a new album on the way.

Besides maintaining a music career, he’s branched out to acting, playing in various movies. In 2011 he even had his own reality TV show with his, at that time, wife, Solé, and 4 of his (8) kids.

All throughout his career, Ginuwine has had many challenges on a personal level. After his dad committed suicide in 1999 and losing his mother to cancer, just months after, in 2000, he slipped into a downwards spiral.

Depression led to him using alcohol and drugs to get through the day, until he finally managed to gig the habit in 2007. In 2009 he first started talking about this to the press and crediting a friend and his pastor to help him get his act back together.

Things seemed to be going better until, in 2012, his daughter took to Twitter to out her anger towards his parenting skills and his ex-wife had to came to another daughter’s defense on social media in 2014. Like he said in the intro of the reality show trailer “There’s always enough going on”.

Even though one daughter may have been really negative, his son is actually trying to follow into his footsteps under the name Kidd Flash:

Ginuwine confirmed working with Timbaland for his upcoming album. The album was supposed to be released in 2015, but he’s only uploaded the controversial “Leave It In” as a preview on SoundCloud.

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