Songoftheday 7/21/23 - I met this chick and she just moved right up the block from me, and uh she got the hots for me the finest thing my hood done seen...

 

 

"Dilemma" - Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland

from the album Nellyville (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (ten weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 27

 

Today's song comes from the rapper Nelly, who ruled the beginning of the summer of 2002 with his pop smash "Hot In Herre".  The same week that song reached #1 on Billboard's Hot 100, Nelly released his follow-up single "Dilemma", a collaboration with Kelly Rowland of the R&B trio Destiny's Child. After radio got a hold of the song, it shot up the charts like a bullet. The song was written by the rapper with producers Antoine Macon and Ryan Bowser over a sample of Patti LaBelle's soul nugget "Love, Need And Want You", a top ten R&B hit from 1983 that never made the Hot 100 and gave writers Bunny Sigler and Kenny Gamble credit on "Dilemma". The lyrics don't include the title word at all, but rather has Nelly describe an affair with an attached woman (with a kid!) that he's fixing on making the moves on. With Kelly singing the chorus apparently giving approval, it seems like the adultery is a go even after he feigns leaving the situation. The music video has a cameo from LaBelle while losing the whole "kid" aspect which would be creepy, but it does have a twist at the end. The chemistry between the two sweetens the illicitness of the plot, and with pop ears unfamiliar with the stellar LaBelle track it was an easy sell, and Nelly found himself replacing himself at the top of the chart...

"Dilemma" spent double-digits at the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 starting in August of 2002 (with a two-week break where a future SOTD ruled), as well as the Rap Singles list, while actually only taking nine atop their R&B singles chart. On the radio, the song topped the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart for five weeks, peaked at #19 on the older-skewing Adult R&B station tally, and did the best at the R&B/dance oriented Rhythmic format, where it took eleven weeks at the top. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Australia, Belgium (#1 Flanders/#3 Wallonia), Germany, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It also reached the top ten in Austria (#2), Sweden (#2), Denmark (#2), New Zealand (#2), Norway (#2), Poland (#2), Canada (#3), Italy (#3), Croatia (#3), Czech Republic (#4), Romania (#5), France (#6), Greece (#9), and Finland (#10). At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Dilemma" won the award for Best Rap/Sung Performance, and was also up for Record Of The Year, which went to Norah Jones' unstoppable lite-jazz of "Don't Know Why". 

With the huge success of the single (giving Kelly the first solo #1 outside of Destiny's Child), her own debut solo album Simply Deep's release date was moved up to October of 2002 (bumping Beyonce into 2003), and the set included "Dilemma". Her set came in at #12 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #3 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.

Both Nelly, Kelly, and their respective albums will be back to the series.

(8/10)

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Here's Nelly and Rowland performing on Top Of The Pops in 2002...

In 2004, Dominican singer/rapper Papi Sanchez released a Spanish language cover of the song, which made the top-20 in France and Belgium...

Dance act Sigma went to #34 on the Scottish singles chart in 2019 with their take...

In 2005, Nelly and Rowland reunited for a TV special tribute to Patti LaBelle...

and lastly, in concert in London in 2009...

SOTD will be back Monday with a colorful singer comparing pharmaceuticals.