98 Degrees performed “True to Your Heart” with Stevie Wonder for Disney’s Mulan (1998).
The song plays over the film’s end credits and was released as a single associated with the Mulan soundtrack. It combines the American boy band’s pop vocals with Stevie Wonder’s singing and harmonica, giving the track a brighter contemporary sound than the film’s internal character numbers.
Matthew Wilder and David Zippel wrote the song. The pair originally developed it for Hanson, but that arrangement did not happen. The song was later reshaped with a Stevie Wonder feel, and Wonder ultimately agreed to sing after initially being approached about playing harmonica.
For 98 Degrees, the collaboration was a major career step. Their debut album had produced limited results, but “True to Your Heart” helped raise the group’s profile before the October 1998 release of 98 Degrees and Rising, their breakthrough album. The song is sometimes misremembered as a Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys or NSYNC recording, but the credited performers are 98 Degrees and Stevie Wonder.