The 1990s File Feature
Taking Everything
Taking Everything: Gerald Levert's Early 1999 Chart Breakthrough By early 1999, Gerald Levert had long since established himself as one of the premier voices…
01 The Story
Taking Everything: Gerald Levert's Early 1999 Chart Breakthrough
By early 1999, Gerald Levert had long since established himself as one of the premier voices in contemporary R&B, carrying a legacy shaped by extraordinary musical lineage and a decade of consistent recording work. The Cleveland-born singer and producer, born in 1966 as the son of O'Jays founding vocalist Eddie Levert, had spent much of the 1990s building an impressive catalog both as a solo artist and as part of the family group LeVert, which he formed with his brother Sean Levert. Despite his deep standing within the genre and his consistent R&B chart success, crossover performance on the Billboard Hot 100 had been somewhat uneven relative to his stature among industry professionals and his core audience. "Taking Everything," released in early 1999, marked one of the strongest Hot 100 performances of his solo career and demonstrated the commercial potential that his voice and his music had always suggested.
Gerald Levert grew up surrounded by soul music royalty, absorbing both the musical values and the professional orientation of the Philadelphia soul tradition from an early age. His father Eddie Levert's work with the O'Jays exposed him to the highest standards of vocal group performance and recording craft at a formative stage of his development. He began his professional recording career as part of LeVert, which achieved significant commercial success in the late 1980s with singles including "Casanova," before transitioning to a solo recording career that allowed him to develop his individual artistic identity more fully.
His solo recordings had established him as a significant creative force in R&B, and subsequent albums had confirmed both his commercial standing within the genre and his artistic credibility with critics who recognized the seriousness of his engagement with the soul tradition. He was known particularly for his deep, expressive baritone, a voice that carried both the gospel-rooted power of the soul tradition he had inherited from his father and a contemporary smoothness appropriate to late-1990s R&B production conventions. He was also an active and accomplished producer, working on his own material and on recordings for other artists, which gave him creative control over his recordings that many vocalists of comparable commercial standing did not enjoy.
"Taking Everything" was released through EastWest Records, a label operating within the Atlantic Records distribution system. The single debuted on the Hot 100 on January 30, 1999, at number 27, a strong opening position that reflected both the promotional support behind the release and the enthusiasm of radio programmers who had supported Levert's work throughout the decade. The track climbed quickly to number 14 by February 6, and then peaked at number 11 during the week of February 20, 1999. The 12 weeks on the chart included a sustained period in the upper reaches of the Hot 100 that stood among the strongest chart performances of his solo career.
The R&B chart performance was even more pronounced than the Hot 100 numbers suggested. "Taking Everything" reached higher positions on the R&B singles chart, reflecting the depth of Levert's standing with the core audience for the genre. Quiet storm radio, which had been an important promotional vehicle for his recordings throughout the decade, embraced the track with enthusiasm and gave it the kind of extended rotation that built genuine audience connection over multiple weeks of consistent airplay.
The production of "Taking Everything" reflected the late-1990s R&B aesthetic at a high level of craft: smooth and polished without sacrificing emotional weight, contemporary in its sonic choices while honoring the expressive tradition of soul singing that Levert represented. The arrangement gave his voice room to demonstrate its full range, from the warm lower register where his baritone was most distinctive to the emotional peaks where his gospel training showed most clearly in the quality and conviction of the delivery.
Gerald Levert continued recording and performing until his death in November 2006 at the age of 40, leaving behind a catalog that documented nearly two decades of significant contributions to American R&B. He was posthumously recognized with tributes from across the music industry that confirmed his standing as one of the genre's essential voices. "Taking Everything" remains one of the stronger entries in that catalog and a reminder of both the power his voice carried and the skill with which he brought genuine emotional honesty to the contemporary production settings of the late 1990s.
02 Song Meaning
Devotion Without Reservation: The Emotional Stakes of "Taking Everything"
"Taking Everything" is a song about total commitment, the particular kind of romantic declaration that announces a willingness to accept both the rewards and the substantial costs of deep and genuine attachment. The title functions simultaneously as description and pledge: the speaker is offering everything he has and is equally prepared to receive everything in return from the person he loves. There is no hedging in this emotional position, no careful self-protection against the possibility of loss or disappointment, no reservation held back against a worse scenario. The song presents vulnerability as a form of strength, the choice to be entirely present and exposed in a relationship as the most meaningful gift one person can offer another.
This is territory that Gerald Levert navigated with particular authority, both because of his vocal instrument and because of the tradition he inhabited and represented. Soul music from its earliest commercial expressions had specialized in exactly this kind of total devotional statement. The tradition runs from Ray Charles and Sam Cooke through Marvin Gaye and Al Green to the late-1990s R&B that Levert practiced with such commitment, and each generation of artists in that lineage found new ways to give the statement of complete devotion both personal specificity and universal resonance that transcended the individual voice delivering it.
Levert's baritone voice gave the lyric a particular quality of weight and considered seriousness. A declaration of total commitment delivered in a deep, warm voice carries a different character than the same words sung in a higher or lighter register: there is an implied groundedness, a suggestion that the feeling being described is stable and considered rather than impulsive or temporary. The voice communicates the reliability of the commitment even as it expresses the passion underlying it, which is a combination that requires genuine vocal personality to achieve and that cannot be produced by craft alone.
The phrase "taking everything" carries a secondary implication worth examining carefully. To take everything someone has to offer is to accept responsibility for handling it with appropriate care. The speaker in the song is not simply claiming a romantic partner as though they were a possession; he is accepting a trust and acknowledging that receiving someone's full emotional offering places real and substantial obligations on the receiver. This nuance gives the song a relational sophistication that moves it beyond simple romantic declaration into something more closely resembling a mutual covenant between equals.
In the late-1990s R&B landscape, where romantic themes ranged widely from explicit physical desire to elaborate lyrical declarations of love, "Taking Everything" occupied a position of emotional seriousness and depth that distinguished it from more transient expressions of feeling. The combination of Levert's vocal authority and the song's lyrical commitment to genuine and unconditional devotion gave it a weight that listeners recognized and responded to with sustained engagement, supporting its chart life over the 12 weeks it spent on the Hot 100 and making it a lasting part of his recorded legacy.
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