I Can Do That

The Story Behind "I Can Do That" by Montell Jordan

Roll the calendar back to the late 1990s, when R&B radio felt like a velvet-lined corridor of slow grooves, layered harmonies, and producers chasing the perfect crossover bounce. Montell Jordan stepped into that world already carrying a giant on his shoulders: the song that had announced him to America a few years earlier was one of the decade's biggest party anthems, and every record after it lived in that long shadow. By the time "I Can Do That" arrived in the summer of 1998, the question hanging over him was simple and unforgiving. Could the man with one of the all-time great house-party records keep the lights on?

A Tall Man With A Big Sound

Standing at nearly seven feet, Montell Jordan was hard to miss, and his music had a matching presence: deep, smooth, unhurried. He had built his name on a blend of smooth R&B vocals and hip-hop swagger, the kind of sound that worked equally well in a club and in a car at midnight. By 1998 he was several singles into a career that had its peaks and its quieter stretches, and he understood the assignment of the era. The late-decade R&B landscape rewarded artists who could feel intimate and confident at once, who could promise the listener a good time without ever raising their voice. "I Can Do That" leans squarely into that promise, a track built on assurance rather than urgency.

Building The Groove

The appeal of the song lives in its restraint. Rather than chasing the harder, more aggressive sound that some of his peers were moving toward, Jordan keeps the tempo conversational and the production warm. The hook trades on a kind of easy bravado, the sound of a man telling you he can give you exactly what you need and meaning every word of it. There is no shouting, no theatrical climax. The arrangement glides, letting the bass carry the weight while the vocal floats on top. It is the work of a performer who knew his lane and trusted it, a song designed for late nights rather than peak-hour radio fireworks.

The Chart Run

The numbers tell a story of slow-burn momentum. "I Can Do That" first appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 15, 1998, entering at number 90, and for a few weeks it hovered near the bottom of the chart, dipping as low as 96 before anyone could be sure it had a pulse. Then came the jump. By September 12, 1998, it had vaulted to number 20, a leap that suggested radio and retail were finally lining up. The single ultimately peaked at number 14 on September 26, 1998, and it stayed in the conversation for a respectable 18 weeks on the Hot 100. For a late-career single competing in one of the most crowded R&B fields of the decade, cracking the top fifteen was no small feat.

Where It Sits In His Legacy

No single from Jordan was ever going to topple the cultural mountain of his earliest smash, and "I Can Do That" never tried to. What it did instead was prove durability. It showed that he could still command attention three years deep into a fickle marketplace, that the smooth, generous persona his fans loved still translated to chart success. In the long arc of 1990s R&B, songs like this one are the connective tissue: not the monuments everyone remembers, but the reliable hits that kept an artist working, touring, and recording. They are the reason a career becomes a catalog rather than a footnote.

Press Play

Drop the needle on this one when the room has thinned out and the night feels like it belongs to you. It rewards a relaxed ear, the kind of listening you do with the lights low and no particular place to be. With more than 950,000 YouTube views keeping it alive online, the groove still finds new rooms to fill decades later.

"I Can Do That" — Montell Jordan's singular moment on the 1990s charts.