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5. Aaliyah, "Are You That Somebody?"

Timbaland never could stop showing off ? couldn't resist flaunting the mastery of the man from the big V-A ? but he really got out of hand here. "Are You That Somebody?" is a mind-warp of a beat, taking the Southern route to the world's pleasure zones. And only Aaliyah could be serene enough to make it float ? a more nervous singer would have busied it up, but nothing ever stressed Ms. Haughton. She gets both goody-goody and naughty-naughty; in the video, she revives the medieval art of falconry. Everything about "Are You That Somebody?" feels deeply chill, from the delirious Prince gurgles to the finger-snaps to the answer to Gwen Stefani. ("Don't speak! you know that would be weak!") Aaliyah will always be that somebody and this will always be her song.

67. Brandy, "Almost Doesn't Count"

A doleful weeper where Ms. Norwood comes close to true love ? but alas, not close enough ? over a flourish of Latin acoustic guitar. "Almost Doesn't Count" became a highlight of the made-for-TV flick Double Platinum, where Brandy plays an aspiring teen diva who meets her secret birth mother, who turns out to be (spoiler) Diana Ross! They bond. They argue. They cry. Greatest movie ever, obviously, at least as far as the Brandy filmography is concerned.

47. Pras Michel feat. Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mya, "Ghetto Supastar"

The third-famous-est Fugee finally breaks out on his own with a freaking Kenny Rogers/Dolly Parton tribute ? Mya sings "Ghetto supastar, that is what you are" to the tune of "Islands in the Stream." Mya makes a damn fine Dolly ("And then we lie on each other, aah-haaaa"), before the track shuts down to make room for a deranged rant from the Big Baby Jesus of Cool himself, Osiris a.k.a. Ol' Dirty Bastard. Just a few months after his legendary stage invasion at the Grammys, ODB declares, "I'm hanging out, partying with girls that never die." The Bee Gees, who wrote "Islands in the Stream," showed they were good sports about the whole thing by doing a 2001 trip-hop remake where they sing "Ghetto Supastar" ? it turned out to be their final recording session. Taylor Swift, a big Mya fan, covered it in 2011 as a tribute. R.I.P. ODB ? now more than ever, Wu-Tang is for the children.

19. Mya, "It's All About Me"

A psychedelic R&B slow jam from Mya, the D.C. ingenue who spent her 19th summer in the Top Ten with her very first single, "It's All About Me." Mya sings uncannily like Prince's feminine alter ego Camille, her voice lost in dubbed-out reverb, with help from Dru Hill's Sisqo (pre?"Thong Song") and producer Darryl Pearson, as she kicks her groovy sexual politics: "Tonight it's about me, me, me, me, me/Forget about you, you, you, you, you."

32. Monica, "The First Night"

Although dueling teen divas Monica and Brandy spent the summer at Number One with their claws-out duet "The Boy Is Mine," they scored much livelier hits on their own. In "The First Night," Atlanta girl Monica dishes about her sexual prerogatives ? "I wanna get down, but not the first night" ? over a filthy disco bass thump sampled from Diana Ross' "Love Hangover," via her producer Jermaine Dupri. It wasn't the easiest year to be a one-named celebrity called "Monica" ? the headlines were full of a certain stained blue dress ? but she rode "The First Night" to Number One for five weeks. Monica went on to star in the BET reality show Monica: Still Standing and married NBA star Shannon Brown.

2. Nicole feat. Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott & Mocha: "Make It Hot"

Missy and Timbaland's ultimate masterpiece. "Make It Hot" was a Top Five hit in the salty summer swelter of 1998 ? officially credited to Nicole, yet a Missy jam in all but billing. The Divine Miss E writes a paranoid pop song about hanging on the telephone, plays dress-up with a paper-doll protegee named Nicole Wray, raps, cackles, giggles, reminds us all, "Me with no Timbaland is like Puff with no Mase." She also invites her girl Aaliyah to sing along and hang out in the video because ? well, wouldn't you? Timbaland lets the funk flow with his swampiest, spaciest beat ever, cheering on the ladies from the control booth ? when Nicole asks, "Can I get another shot?" he answers with a "Yes, you can." It's a communal celebration of Missy and Tim taking over, from a moment when Dirty South feminist hip-hop was the future and Elliott was our one true queen. "Make It Hot" has gotten absurdly slept on by history, but make no mistake, it still sounds like a cool future.

8. Lauryn Hill, "Lost Ones"

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was one of those albums where the street date turned into a nationwide block party ? the week it dropped, wherever you went, L-Boogie was all you heard. (The summer's other hit in this category: Hello Nasty.) The Fugees star began her solo career with a one-two punch: her fiercest hip-hop battle rhyme in "Lost Ones" and her most soulful balladry in "Ex-Factor." (Miseducation has to be one of the most front-loaded albums ever.) Part Al Capone, part Nina Simone, Ms. Hill seizes her solo voice, taunting her old bandmates: "You might win some but you just lost one."

9. Jay-Z feat. Amil and Ja Rule, "Can I Get A..."

"Bounce with me, bounce with me," Jay chants in his glossiest club track, an electro-disco gold-digger symposium with Amil speaking up for the ladies. (Fair question: "You ain't gotta be rich but fuck that / How we gonna get around on your bus pass?") "Can I Get A..." was one of those hits that improves in its censored-for-radio edit: the clean version asks "Can I get a whaaa-whaaa" and "Can I get a hoo-hoo," yet somehow that slams even harder. The Irv Gotti-produced Hard Knock Life highlight introduced Ja Rule and Amil, who made her own kick-ass album with the excellent title All Money Is Legal. (And if you've ever wanted to see a young Anne Hathaway thug out, I'm afraid this happened.) Of all the hits from his takeover phase, this was the one that proclaimed Jigga was on top of the world ? to stay.

14. Noreaga, "Superthug"

Is you knowing what you facing? "Superthug" was one of the first Neptunes productions anyone heard, as Pharrell and Chad clobbered unsuspecting audiences over the head with that blinged-out Virginia beat and Kelis' seductive background coos. Noreaga fires off his "what what what what" chants and boasts about all the messages on his Skytel pager. Best line: "All our whips got navigation/While your whips is just garbation."

58. Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz, "Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)"
A Bronx anthem for a very Brooklyn year, with Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz reminding everyone that "If it wasn't for the Bronx, this rap shit probably never would be going on." (Something so gangsta about that "probably.") The duo rhyme over the bass line from Steely Dan's superthug classic "Black Cow." An expensive sampling choice, since Donald Fagen and Walter Becker ended up owning the whole copyright, but a brilliant one, as Tariq and Gunz do the boogie-down proud with a hip-hop royal scam.

45. Destiny's Child, "No, No, No (Pt. 2)"

Imagine ? the first time the world ever got to hear the magic voices of LeToya and LeTavia! OK, so even at the start, one member of this girl group was slightly more equal than the others. "No, No, No" was the first Destiny's Child hit, breaking at Top 40 radio when they were still packaged as Wyclef's latest proteg?es. In the immortal words of Ed McMahon on Star Search, "Your challengers are a young group from Houston." Hearing it now means going back in time to a moment when this was the only Beyonc? song any of us had heard ? but it was already obvious she had hot sauce in her bag, and "No, No, No" hit Number Three on the pop charts. She woke up like this.

37. Divine, "Lately"

In a fantastic year for R&B slow jams, this girl-group heartbreak ballad really stood out. (The trio Divine was no relation to the one who starred in all those John Waters movies.) A staple of BET's Midnight Love, "Lately" breezed in out of nowhere, but muscled its way to Number One on the pop charts just because there was no denying these pleading voices, especially at the Toni Braxton?esque payoff line: "I drown myself with tears, sitting here, singing 'Another Sad Love Song.'" This song is inexplicably underrated these days, but that just means it's ripe for rediscovery. Divine's only other hit was a cover of George Michael's "One More Try."

The list
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/rob-sheffields-98-best-songs-of-1998-w519958/divine-lately-w520010

[Lazarus]

72. Deborah Cox, "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here"

People were just starting to say "empowerment" as the Nineties began and sick of it by Y2K, but the concept was pretty much defined by Nineties R&B radio. Case in point: Deborah Cox's "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here," a rainy-day jam about a woman who's gotten burned too many times but dares to try again. ("How ... did ... you ... GET here?" Damn.) First it was a blockbuster ballad, then got remixed into a disco hit ? both versions killed. When Angela Bassett directed her Lifetime biopic about Whitney Houston, she got Ms. Cox to sing Nippy's vocals ? she was the highlight of the movie.

94. Foxy Brown, "Hot Spot"

"Everybody has their gimmick," Foxy explained to Rolling Stone in 1998. "Lauryn is very positive. Missy and Da Brat are sorta fun and hardcore. Then you have Foxy, who is, like, sex." The Brooklyn rapper stays very on brand in "Hot Spot," balling at the club with her girls ? like she said, "Every woman has a Foxy Brown in her." Best line: "MCs wanna eat me but it's Ramadan."