The bassline thumps like a heartbeat in overdrive, that unmistakable groove snaking through car speakers and club walls, pulling you back to a time when Y2K glitter still clung to the air and thongs weren’t just underwear—they were a revolution wrapped in velvet vocals. “Thong Song” wasn’t just a hit; it was a cultural Molotov, catapulting Sisqo (born Mark Althavean Andrews) from Dru Hill’s harmonious heights to solo stardom’s dizzying peak. Released in February 2000 as the final single of the ’90s, it slithered to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, snagged Grammy nods, and racked up over a billion streams today, a testament to its sticky, seductive spell. But behind the platinum plaque and the platinum Caesar haircut that became his signature swagger, Sisqo’s story twists into something far grittier—a cautionary tale of talent tangled in the music machine’s merciless gears, where refusing to “sell your soul” meant vanishing from the spotlight you helped illuminate.

Flash back to Baltimore’s blue-collar pulse in the mid-’90s, where a lanky kid with a falsetto that could shatter glass and dance moves that defied gravity caught lightning in a bottle with Dru Hill. The quartet—Sisqo, Tamir “Nokio” Ruffin, Mark “Sisqó” Andrews, wait no, that’s him—alongside James “Woody” Green and Larry “Jazz” Anthony—dropped their self-titled debut in 1996, fusing gospel-soaked harmonies with street-smart sensuality. Hits like “In My Bed” and “Never Make a Promise” earned them Billboard awards and a spot opening for the likes of Mary J. Blige, but Sisqo was the spark, his high-wire vocals and hip-thrusting flair turning stages into spectacles. By 1998, internal beefs splintered the group, but Sisqo didn’t crumble—he soared solo, unleashing Unleash the Dragon on Def Soul (an Island/Def Jam imprint) and birthing the anthem that redefined early-aughts lust.

That kitchen epiphany? Pure poetry. As Sisqo recounted in a 2021 Vice documentary, the spark ignited on a lackluster date: a woman flashed her thong like a dare, flipping his world upside down. “It was like Moses on the mountain—stone-tableted into my mind,” he quipped, scribbling lyrics with cousin Marquis “DaKidd” Collins over a beat crafted by Tim & Bob, initially sampled from The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” but rewritten to dodge Michael Jackson’s publishing iron grip. The result? A track so infectious it sampled classical flights (“Flight of the Bumblebee”) and nodded to Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca”—a cheeky interpolation that would later bite back hard, handing majority publishing rights to songwriter Desmond Child after a lawsuit, shrinking Sisqo’s royalties to crumbs while the song streams eternal. “We just gonna have to take the L,” Sisqo sighed in the doc, a shrug masking the sting of a hit he couldn’t fully claim.

But if the royalties robbed him blind, the real heist was subtler, sharper: the slow bleed of his career into obscurity, courtesy of a clash with one of music’s most Teflon-coated titans, Lyor Cohen. In a bombshell 2023 VladTV interview that resurfaced like a bad remix, Sisqo spilled the tea on the tipping point—a heated blowout with Cohen, then Def Jam’s co-president, that branded him “difficult” and slammed the blacklist door shut. “I cursed out that one executive at the record label that put me on the blacklist,” Sisqo admitted, naming Cohen without flinching. It started small, he explained: pushing for his choreographers, stylists, and producers to get paid, ensuring “my people eat” amid label-favored crews. But in an industry where artists are pawns, not partners, that autonomy? It was heresy. “You get labeled hard to work with because you’re trying to make sure your circle thrives,” Sisqo said, his voice steady but laced with the quiet fire of a man who’s paid dearly for principle.

Cohen, the Israeli-born exec who’s climbed from Def Jam promoter to YouTube’s music chief, built a fortune on rap’s renegades—signing DMX, Jay-Z, and Kanye while navigating the ’90s East-West wars like a chess grandmaster. But to Sisqo and others, he’s the ultimate culture vulture, a suit who confessed in a 2019 N.O.R.E. chat to prioritizing “talent over issues,” even if it meant peddling opioids-glorifying tracks amid the lean epidemic. “I got people to feed, a business to run,” Cohen shrugged, defending deals that critics say preyed on vulnerability. His nadir? A 2021 video eulogy at DMX’s funeral, where he doubled down on a cruel quip: “X is a gremlin… reckless, looking for a wall to crash into. This death is no surprise.” Played amid sniffles and sermons at Brooklyn’s Christian Cultural Center, it drew gasps—Swizz Beatz, DMX’s collaborator, later venting the betrayal in a speech that sliced through the sanctuary like a Ruff Ryders anthem. Cohen’s “gremlin” jab, born of a dual-persona split he once praised (Earl the fisherman vs. X the fiend), landed like a diss track at a wake, underscoring the exec’s knack for profiting off pain while patronizing the pained.

For Sisqo, the blacklist wasn’t abstract—it was erasure etched in ether. He claims he opened the inaugural BET Awards in 2001, a high-octane performance that should have cemented his legend, only to watch himself vanish from the broadcast reel, scrubbed like a bad outtake. “They erased me from the BET Awards… I wasn’t there no more,” he told Vlad, a digital damnatio memoriae that mirrored the industry’s whisper network: label him “difficult,” and doors don’t just close—they weld shut. Post-Unleash the Dragon (which sold 2.7 million copies), follow-ups like Return of Dragon (2001) and Last Dragon (2010) sputtered, blamed on Sisqo’s “disappearing act,” but he insists it was orchestrated exile. “I never fell off—I just didn’t play the game,” he clarified, choosing the “long way” over soul-selling crossroads where fame demands fealty.

Layered atop the professional purge? A personal pillory that’s haunted Sisqo for decades: relentless gay rumors, sparked by his bold aesthetics—the blonde locks, leather fits, and that infamous mankini strut on Celebrity Big Brother in 2010, where he snagged “Hunk of the House” amid cheers and crown. “The gay rumors? Unwarranted,” Sisqo shot back in interviews, flipping the script with a challenge: “If you want to find out if I’m gay, leave your girlfriend with me overnight—she’ll tell you in the morning.” Married to Elizabeth Pham since 2003, father to two, he chalks it to trailblazing: “I’m a trailblazer, dude. Everybody’s doing blonde hair and leather now—are they gay too?” Yet the whispers weren’t harmless; they were weapons, amplified by an industry that, as Sisqo hints, pressured him toward a “DL” double life—hidden compromises at parties where rituals reeked of control, tapes as leverage, echoes of Diddy’s alleged playbook passed from mentors like Cohen.

Insiders murmur of a darker dance: execs luring talents into compromising corners, blackmail as the ultimate contract clause, a cycle Cohen and his ilk allegedly perpetuated. Sisqo never confirms the tape traps outright, but his “sell your soul” refrain—refusing the “weird rituals” that bound others—paints a chilling canvas. “At a certain point, you hit a crossroads: sell or stand,” he reflected, eyes steely with hindsight. Fans echo the ache: “We lost a gift because he wouldn’t bend,” one X user lamented, while another fumed, “If he’d played suspect, they’d have blown him to the stars—this industry’s a horror flick waiting to drop.”

Sisqo’s not vanished, though—he’s a phoenix in phoenix feathers, touring with Dru Hill reunions that pack nostalgia’s punch, dropping EPs like 2021’s Elevation, and even suing for $600K in pilfered “Thong Song” royalties from a dodgy collector in 2023. At 46, he’s unbowed, his voice a velvet verdict on resilience: “The truth will set you free.” In an era where Diddy’s downfall drags skeletons into daylight and Cohen’s YouTube throne feels a tad too high, Sisqo’s saga stings sharp—a reminder that the real hits aren’t always on wax, but the ones that hit hardest when you refuse to fake the funk. Hollywood’s house of mirrors might crack one day, but Sisqo’s shine? That’s eternal, thong and all.