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Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ Sample — Original Timmy Thomas Has Word For ‘6 God’

By Antonio J. Newell
Published on: 21:41 PST, May 9, 2016

You’ve heard Drake’s “Hotline Bling” sample by now, right? Well, it seems that the original creator has a few words for Drizzy. Likewise, Drake gives a response.

Drake’s “Hotline Bling” was one of the bigger songs of 2015, and it’s still making waves today. As part of Drake’s new Views album, “Hotline Bling” is still quite relevant to Drizzy’s project release.

According to social consensus, not many have heard much about Drake’s song, as far as its creation. Mostly, people just knew it was a hot track. However, the listening masses hadn’t heard anything from the sample’s creator — until now.

During a recent interview, Drake got on the topic of “Hotline Bling” while Nardwuar was handing out souvenirs and classic memorabilia. And since Drake’s song sampled a 1970’s era classic, the host saw a fitting opportunity to bring the sample originator into the mix.

Timmy Thomas wanted to say something to Drake via his Nardwuar interview. Drake’s “Hotline Bling” sample was actually from Thomas’ 1973 song, “Why Can’t We Live Together.” In the Nardwuar interview, the legend mentioned as follows:

“The first thing I would like to say is that I appreciate the fact that you used my first ‘original’ track. No cover, you never used any of that… [2] I heard some of the comments. I think it was productions 85 [Nineteen85] when they said, ‘We used Timmy Thomas’ version of that first one, and everybody in the room said that that’s it. That’s the one.’ Then, they listened to a lot of other beats. So, that made me feel good.

[3] I love the fact that people love him. He’s got a whole country… Canada… that loves him. He can’t do any wrong. Then, you have all those people listening again. In which, I was #1 in Canada in ’73, and now it’s #1 in Canada with ‘Hotline Bling’ — which is not the message but the music. So, I just want to say to him, from the bottom of my heart, thanks a million. Drake, you and the music crew.”

If you’d like to hear Timmy Thomas’ original song, you can listen in the video below.

Timmy Thomas – Why Can’t We Live Together

In the interview, Drake mentioned that he fell in love with the sample after-the-fact. As in, after Drake heard the beat for “Hotline Bling,” he sought out the sample for the track. Since then, Drizzy has labeled the original song artist as one of his “top favorites of all-time.”

After hearing such a personal word from the “Hotline Bling” sample originator, Drake was overwhelmed and had to give an instant response to Thomas’ words of gratitude. According to the source, Drake responded as follows.

“Timmy, man, I love you. I just want to thank him for making incredible music in the time that he was making music. And just for doing something that’s ‘timeless’, because it’s really difficult — not only for something to resonate with you years later but be good enough to actually take a piece of it and be able to make something else from it. That takes a really special creation.

So, Timmy, you’re one of my favorite artists, man. After listening to this full thing — and, I’ve heard the full thing — I love it. I appreciate that message, and it means a lot.”

Drake found out exactly what Thomas meant by “using the original,” rather than someone else’s cover. Moments after giving his own response, Nardwuar showed Drake one of Sade’s multi-million-selling albums. And, on the back — in the song list, one of the covers was Timmy Thomas’ “Why Can’t We Live Together.” So this is what he meant by Drake using his original from 1973 instead of someone else’s cover track.

But, as it turns out, several people have also performed cover tracks to Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” and some of them are getting radio play — like William Singe.

All in all, what do you think about Drake’s “Hotline Bling”? Did you know it was sampled? There are some listeners who claim that they thought it was all Drake’s original work. What are your feelings about the Views album song? Feel free to share in the comments below.

[Image via Instagram]

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