Tyler, The Creator’s “First Reggae Song” – Which Samples Fil Callendar’s ‘Baby My Love’ – Certified Platinum In The US
Sweet/I Thought You Wanted To Dance, a standout track on Tyler, The Creator’s Grammy Award-winning album, Call Me If You Get Lost, is now certified Platinum in the United States, three years after its release.
The two-part song – which sampled Panamanian-born Filberto ‘Fil’ Callendar’s 1978 underground hit, Baby My Love, featuring Jah Stitch and backed by Fil’s Jamaican showband, The In Crowd – notched the required 1,000,000 units on Friday, April 5, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Baby My Love – the result of Fil’s experimentation with recording solo, a course suggested by English producer and The In Crowd’s eventual manager and publisher, Phil Mattias – formed the bedrock of what Tyler, The Creator dubbed his first Reggae song, I Thought You Wanted To Dance.
Though Reggae, according to Tyler, was not his favorite genre, Fil’s Baby My Love caught his ears while he was watching the second episode of the British anthology film series Small Axe.
“I was watching this show on Amazon called Small Axe… and in [Episode 2] there were a lot of Reggae songs playing. Me, personally… not my favourite genre. But all the songs they played in this episode were so fire,” Tyler explained.
“I’d come to find out that there’s a subgenre of Reggae called ‘Lover’s Rock,’” he continued, further explaining the song’s background to fans during a New York show.
He described his new discovery, Lover’s Rock, as “…a little bit more smooth [than Reggae], a little bit more R&B,” and highlighted the moment he first heard the Panamanian’s song. “There was a song they played on there and I was like, ‘Yo, this sh-t is sick!’ I got up outta bed, went straight to the computer, looped it, and started building shit around it. Next thing I know, it’s like 4 AM and I made my first Reggae song!”
Not only did Fil’s Baby My Love inspire Tyler, The Creator’s first Reggae song, but it allowed the California-born rapper to continue a trend – one that began in 2009 with his debut album, Bastard. Without fail, on each of Tyler’s albums, every 10th track – which Sweet/I Thought You Wanted To Dance was on Call Me If You Get Lost – has consistently been a two-part song.
Sweet/I Thought You Wanted To Dance, which featured Fana Hues & Brent Faiyaz, entered the US Billboard Hot 100 chart on July 6, 2021, where it peaked at No. 60.
That led to a resurgence in Baby My Love, which Fil described as “a good feeling”.
In July 2021, he told the Jamaica Observer: “Man, it’s a good feeling that the song can be connected to a new audience. We (The In Crowd band) were popular mostly in the United Kingdom and Europe but we weren’t so popular in America. I was surprised that the song was sampled by a hip-hop artist, but we are really overwhelmed.”
In May 2022, Filberto Callendar died at home in St. Andrew, Jamaica, at the age of 75.
Tyler’s Call Me If You Get Lost, which won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, topped the US Billboard 200 chart on its debut, July 10, 2021, selling 169,000 album-equivalent units in its first week.
The album is currently certified Platinum for selling over 1,000,000 units, according to the RIAA.