Jack Harlow’s newest record, “Lovin On Me” has helped a Detroit R&B artist land his first-ever chart-topping hit.
Harlow’s track samples Cadillac Dale’s 1996 song “Whatever (Bass Solique)," which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month and then peaked at No. 1 on Monday.
"This fell in my lap, man," Dale told The Detroit News after learning that the song reached No. 1. "I was laying in bed with my wife, pillow-talking when the actual message came through and this all began."
Harlow’s team contacted Dale on Instagram a couple of months ago to ask if he was the one who made “Whatever (Bass Solique).” Later, they sent him a preview of the track, which includes Dale’s lyrics, "I don't like no whips and chains and you can't tie me down/ but you can whip your lovin' on me, baby."
"When I heard what they did with my song, I was like, 'what the fff!'" he told the outlet. "I was just blown away."
On Thanksgiving, Harlow performed the song during his halftime set at the Detroit Lions game, where he also met Dale. "He was very, very genuine," Dale said of the 25-year-old. "He told me that when the song was presented to him, he already knew it was going to be a single, that there was something very special about it, and that was very humbling to me."
According to Dale, this isn’t the first time a high-profile artist has reached out to sample one of his songs—a few years ago, Rihanna almost sampled something of his, though it didn’t work out. Big Sean also previously sampled Dale’s track “Soulful Moaning” on the Detroit 2 album cut “Body Language.”
Dale recorded the 1995 song “Soulful Moaning” with his then-partner, Shawn Harris. Together, they were Shawn & Dale, and while the record became a hit on Detroit radio, it never became bigger. Just as the song was finding success, Harris was convicted of double homicide and was incarcerated. Arguments over royalties led Dale to abandon the song—and he’s since left music in the past, until now.
There are seven total songwriters on “Lovin On Me,” which, as of this writing, has been streamed over 69 million times on Spotify. Dale also uploaded “Whatever (Bass Solique)” to YouTube in November.
