“True to Your Heart” 98 Degrees Featuring Stevie Wonder for the Mulan Soundtrack.
In the nineties Disney movies ended with an R&B artist singing over the closing credits about dreams and love. These artists were allegedly “up and coming” but were actually mediocre singers who never even became one hit wonders. For Mulan Disney changed shit up. They hired a 98 Degrees, a boy band on the brink of world domination, and paired them with a legend, Stevie Wonder. For the music video, 98 Degrees chased a hot Asian girl around China town and then shook their arms in front of a Chinese restaurant with Stevie Wonder. Someone thought this was a great idea. It wasn’t. But the song and ridiculous video reveal what made nineties era Disney so special: As we thought boy bands could reach Stevie’s level of fame, the company believed that it was building a bridge between the past (Cinderella and mysogogony) and the future (China and feminism) through songs about being “true to your heart.” The result was bizare (wtf is Hercules?), but the songs and movies’ hearts were there, leaving us with cultural artifacts that actually make audiences smile.
