“Smooth” by Santana featuring Rob Thomas

"Smooth" kicked off the Supernatural era for Santana in June 1999 as the album's lead single, with Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty out front on vocals. Thomas wrote it with Itaal Shur, reworking Shur's original tune and words, and Matt Serletic produced.

It's a sweaty, strutting Latin-rock number: Rodney Holmes and Benny Rietveld lock down the groove, Karl Perazzo's percussion and Raul Rekow's congas keep it simmering, the horns punch in, and Carlos Santana's guitar cuts through everything with a singing, stinging tone. It ran 12 straight weeks at number one on the Hot 100, the last chart-topper of the '90s and the first of the 2000s. At the 42nd Grammys it swept three big prizes: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.