Cadillac Dale got word that Jack Harlow wanted to sample his song. Now their song is No. 1

Cadillac Dale put in a lot of work for his success. But it wasn't until he stopped going after it that finally it came to him.

The Detroit R&B artist is currently a part of the No. 1 song in the country, Jack Harlow's "Lovin On Me," which hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart on Monday. The song is built around a sample of Dale's 1995 song "Whatever (Bass Solique)," and Dale is as surprised as anyone to suddenly be riding the top of the charts.

"This fell in my lap, man," says Dale, reacting to the song's success just hours after it hit No. 1 on Monday. "I was laying in bed with my wife pillow talking when the actual message came through and this all began."

It started on Instagram a couple months ago, as members of Harlow's team reached out to Dale to make sure he was the artist behind the song they planned to sample. They then sent him a snippet of the track they'd built, which is based on a sped up loop of Dale's line, "I don't like no whips and chains and you can't tie me down/ but you can whip your lovin' on me, baby." Dale was stunned at what he heard, in the best of ways.

"When I heard what they did with my song, I was like, 'what the fff!'" he says, stopping himself short of cursing. "I was just blown away."

From there, everything happened relatively quickly.

The track — produced by hitmaker Oz (Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode," Drake's "Toosie Slide"), along with Nik D and Sean Momberger — started rolling out on TikTok in October, and was officially released as a single on Nov. 10. It debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100, behind Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer," and moved up a spot to No. 1 on the chart released Monday.

Harlow, the 25-year-old Louisville rapper, performed the song as part of his halftime set at the Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving day game, and Dale was there on the sidelines, wearing a bright red puffy coat and sporting his cool white beard, "being like the Black Santa Claus," he says with a laugh.

He met Harlow for the first time and the two shared a brief moment, with Harlow thanking him for the use of the song and Dale thanking him right back for making his dreams come true — even if, at age 56, they came a little later in life than expected.

'Soulful' searching

Dale, born Delbert Greer, grew up on the East Side of Detroit and has always been drawn to music. "I've been in love with music since I was a little boy and there has been nothing, absolutely nothing, that has made me fall out of love of music," he says.

In the '90s he was recording as Dale — the Cadillac didn't come until later — and he scored a hit on Detroit airwaves with 1995's bedroom R&B track "Soulful Moaning," recorded as part of the duo Shawn & Dale, with his musical partner Shawn Harris.

But as the song was taking off, Harris was convicted of double homicide and went to jail. Disputes over royalties on "Soulful Moaning" ensued, and Dale stepped away from the single, details over which he says he's holding back for a "Searching for Sugar Man"-style documentary he's working on about his life and career. "It's a heartbreaking story, but at the same time, man, it's a glorious story," Dale says.

He kept recording, releasing a pair of albums in 1998 and 2001, neither of which made much noise. In the '00s he went to Poland and worked extensively with the rapper O.S.T.R., but the early success of "Soulful Moaning" never turned into anything bigger. Music was his passion, but it wasn't a moneymaker.

After meeting his wife Trish, who hails from Montreal, Dale moved to Windsor, where he now resides. He works as a personal assistant to an interior designer, so he's learning about that field, and he helps run Culinary Studio, a shared use kitchen in Southfield. He's not much of a chef himself. "I just eat, I don't cook," he says, although his wife makes what he believes to be "the best soup in North America."

Dale is a grandfather, a father, a husband and a family man who had mostly left the music industry in his rearview mirror. There was the time a few years ago when he says Rihanna nearly sampled a song of his, which never materialized but got him used to the legalities of the sampling process, which helped out when Big Sean used a sample of "Soulful Moaning" on "Body Language," a track from his 2020 album "Detroit 2."

The Jack Harlow situation, however, put him in a whole new stratosphere.

Cadillac dreams

When "Lovin on Me" started to happen, Dale was somewhat cognizant of Harlow and his work. "I had heard the name Jack Harlow but I wasn't really familiar with all of his stuff. He had a song 'First Class,' and that tore up the radio charts," he says. ("First Class," which samples Fergie's "Glamourous," spent three non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 in spring 2022, becoming Harlow's first solo No. 1, which followed his duet with Lil Nas X, "Industry Baby," which spent a week at No. 1 in Oct. 2021.)

Meeting Harlow at the Lions game, Dale came away impressed with his character. "He was very, very genuine," he says. "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."

Dale is credited as one of seven songwriters on the track, which has been streamed more than 65 million times on Spotify. Meanwhile, Dale uploaded "Whatever (Bass Solique)" to YouTube two weeks ago, and an official streaming release of the single is to follow. And he's got a bank of more than 100 songs he plans to upload to streaming services soon, and he's ready for the next "Lovin On Me," if and when it comes.

For now, he's just trying to keep everything in perspective.

"I find myself waking up in the middle of the night asking, 'is this for real?' And it's like, 'Yeah Dale, this is for real,'" he says. "I know how to pace myself, but when all of these things that you say you want to do are right there in your face, you have to breathe.

"I remember when 'Soulful Moaning' was No. 1 in just little ol' Detroit, that was overwhelming. So I've learned how to grow into this," he says. "It is what it is, I accept it because it's something that I want and I've been working on for a long time, but my purpose has changed. It's not about, 'I want to sell a million records.' It's about using this gift that was given to me to make music that touches people."

He's happy seeing his music touching people, whether it's through TikTok or Instagram or interactions with real world listeners. Whatever happens from here, Dale does have one request going forward.

"I'ma put this in the universe," he says. "When he performs at the Grammys? I'm gonna say, 'Jack, I need to introduce the song at the show.'"

agraham@detroitnews.com