The 1990s File Feature
Do You Like This
Do You Like This: Rome's Twenty-Week RB was in a phase of extraordinary commercial confidence. The genre had spent the early part of the decade establishing …
01 The Story
Do You Like This: Rome's Twenty-Week R&B Ascent on the 1997 Hot 100
The R&B Landscape That Made Room for Rome
In the summer of 1997, American R&B was in a phase of extraordinary commercial confidence. The genre had spent the early part of the decade establishing a new template, blending the melodic traditions of soul with hip-hop production aesthetics and new jack swing rhythmic patterns, and by 1997 that template had been refined to a polished commercial precision. Radio formats for adult contemporary R&B were sophisticated and well-resourced, and the audience for smooth, romantic, groove-oriented material was enormous.
Into this landscape came Rome, the professional name of Dante Jordan, a singer who had been developing within the R&B system and who released his self-titled debut album in 1997 on RCA Records. The album's production was in the mainstream R&B tradition of the period: warm, mid-tempo grooves, layered harmonies, and lyrical content oriented toward romance and desire. "Do You Like This" was the project's breakout single, a track that connected with radio programmers and audiences in ways that sustained it on the chart for a remarkable duration.
Building Momentum Through R&B Radio
"Do You Like This" operated according to the slow-build model that characterized many successful mid-1990s R&B releases. The song found its audience primarily through adult R&B radio, a format that was patient with material that rewarded repeated listening over the quick impression favored by pop radio. The production was crafted with this format in mind: enough sonic warmth and production polish to satisfy format directors, and a vocal performance from Dante Jordan that had the smoothness and emotional clarity that adult R&B audiences prized.
The title itself was an invitation to conversation, a device that placed the listener in dialogue with the narrator and with the music itself. This kind of self-referential musical gesture was not uncommon in late 1990s R&B, where the relationship between the song and its audience was often incorporated into the lyrical framework. "Do you like this?" asked both the narrator's love interest and the radio listener simultaneously, and the format's response validated the approach.
Twenty Weeks of Chart Momentum
"Do You Like This" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 2, 1997, entering at number 72. The chart run that followed was a sustained and impressive climb: from 72 to 50 to 40, then into the 30s, reaching its peak of number 31 on August 30, 1997, less than four weeks after its debut. The song then held in the top half of the chart for several more weeks before a gradual descent that extended the total run to 20 weeks on the Hot 100, a figure that marks genuine commercial traction rather than a brief moment of radio attention.
That 20-week run was among the longer Hot 100 residences for a debut single in the R&B field in 1997, and it reflected the ability of a well-crafted adult R&B track to build and sustain audience engagement over an extended period through format radio support.
Rome's Place in Late-1990s R&B
Rome existed in a crowded marketplace of smooth R&B vocalists in the late 1990s, and "Do You Like This" demonstrated that there was still room in that market for a well-executed entry from a new voice. Dante Jordan's vocal performance on the track had the hallmarks that adult R&B audiences valued: control, warmth, and an emotional sincerity that communicated without overstatement.
The album received positive attention within the R&B format, and "Do You Like This" served as an effective introduction to an artist who had developed genuine craft within the genre conventions. The 20-week Hot 100 run was the commercial confirmation of that craft's effectiveness in the marketplace of 1997.
Put "Do You Like This" on and you will hear exactly what late-1990s adult R&B sounded like when it was done well: smooth, warm, confident, and entirely devoted to making you feel like you are in exactly the right place.
"Do You Like This" — Rome's singular moment on the 1990s charts.
02 Song Meaning
Do You Like This: The Art of the Romantic Question in 1990s R&B
Interrogation as Seduction
The question format is one of the oldest rhetorical devices in romantic songwriting, and "Do You Like This" uses it with an interesting self-awareness. The interrogation in the title is simultaneously directed at the song's subject and at the listener, making the audience complicit in the romantic transaction being narrated. When Rome asks "do you like this," he is asking his love interest, but he is also asking you, the person listening, whether the groove, the performance, the feeling of the track has achieved its intended effect.
This kind of meta-awareness, in which the song acknowledges its own status as a constructed aesthetic object trying to produce a specific response, was a feature of some of the most sophisticated R&B of the 1990s. The best smooth R&B tracks operated with this double consciousness, knowing themselves to be vehicles for atmosphere as much as carriers of lyrical content.
The Grammar of the Smooth Groove
Late-1990s adult R&B had developed a highly specific grammar of seduction. The tempo was set within a precise range: fast enough to feel alive and sensual, slow enough to demand physical proximity if dancing was involved. The production layered warm synthesizers beneath live-feeling rhythm instruments, with bass that communicated through the body as much as the ears. Vocal harmonies provided support structures for the lead voice, creating a sense of abundance and richness that served as an implicit promise about the quality of what was being offered.
"Do You Like This" used this grammar fluently. The production positioned Rome's vocal at the center of a soundscape that felt luxurious without feeling excessive, polished without feeling cold. This was the aesthetic sweet spot for adult R&B radio in 1997, and the song inhabited it with apparent ease.
Desire as Collaboration
The lyrical world of "Do You Like This" frames romantic and physical desire as a collaborative project. The narrator is attentive to his partner's response, checking in, seeking confirmation that what is being offered is genuinely desired and genuinely pleasing. This attentiveness is part of what separates the song from more aggressive or unilateral expressions of male desire in the same genre space.
The desire for reciprocity, for confirmation that the feeling is shared and the pleasure is mutual, is one of the most fundamental human social needs. Songs that articulate this need with sincerity tend to resonate across demographic lines because the feeling is universal even if the musical expression is genre-specific.
The Twenty-Week Connection
The twenty weeks that "Do You Like This" spent on the Billboard Hot 100 were accumulated through the patient work of format radio, through repeated plays building cumulative familiarity and affection in an audience that had time to grow genuinely fond of the track. This is different from the immediate impact of a song that enters the chart at a high position and dominates instantly; it is the slower, more sustainable kind of connection that a certain type of adult listener prefers.
Rome's audience in 1997 was looking for exactly this kind of sustained company from a record: something that could be on the radio on the commute home, that felt like a welcome presence rather than an intrusion, that offered comfort and warmth without demanding immediate emotional engagement. "Do You Like This" offered all of this, and its chart longevity was the audience's answer to its titular question.
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