Tennessee

Chrysalis and Cooltempo released Tennessee in March 1992 as the first single from the debut. Speech wrote it after losing his grandmother and his older brother. He called it the first step in recovering from the loss, and described the chorus as a prayer to God. He made the beat first, anchored on the word Tennessee from Prince's Alphabet St., and said the lyrics took about an hour. Aerle Taree added her parts in his bedroom studio. Dionne Farris sang the ending in a professional studio, in about ten takes, and Speech kept the first.

The sample was not cleared. Speech said Prince's representatives called as the record began to slip down the chart, and that he paid $100,000 for the word. The single reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B Singles chart for a week. In the UK it peaked at 46, then reached 18 on a re-release in 1993. It won the 1993 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

Milcho Manchevski directed the black-and-white video in Georgia, with friends of the group and neighbors as extras, in a house that still held slave shackles. The label gave the group $19,000 to make it. Speech said he disliked the final cut at first, until friends who watched it loved it. Bob Dylan played the song on his Theme Time Radio Hour in 2006. Speech said that some nights he breaks down performing it, and he called the song a prayer to God about the purpose of our existence.