Dilemma

It’s about a married girl who’s in love with another guy, which is a ‘Dilemma’. It is based on 1983 song “Love, Need and Want you” by Patti LaBelle. In an interview with XXL Magazine, Nelly recalled collaborating with Kelly Rowland on this song, he said: “I did the Nellyville album in Miami, recorded the songs and all that.. and we kind of felt like we needed a couple more songs on there. So, the last two songs that we put on Nellyville were ‘Hot In Here’ and ‘Dilemma.’ At this time we had been on tour with the girls from Destiny’s Child so we had become, fairly close to the girls and all that and I was like, ‘What do you think about Kelly?’ but at this time she was dating someone very close to me, I should say that, and we was like, ‘Yo, fam, this would hot.’ So you know we got her in the studio and shit was magic.”
Bam (Antoine Macon) had a skeleton track produced by Ryan Bower which had elements form Patti LaBelle’s 1983 song “Love, Need and Want You” He wanted to include it on his album. Bam said: “We sat down at the keyboard and just messed around. Then we added some drums and Nelly began to write some words.” It was almost finished when Bam put on the Patti LaBelle album I’m In Love Again and started humming one of the tracks, “Love, Need And Want You.” Nelly was not familiar with the song but liked it and insisted they use the “I love you” hook. When Nelly heard the finished track, he said, “I wanted to do something that nobody would think of, and that’s why I bought in Kelly Rowland. I thought she would be better on her own as opposed to Destiny’s Child.”

Release Date: June 25, 2002

Songwriter/s: Cornell Haynes, Jr. – Antoine Macon – Kenneth Gamble – Bunny Sigler

Label: Universal – Columbia

Chart Rankings: The song sold over 7.6 million copies worldwide. In the US, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100, the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts and the Mainstream Top 40 Charts. In the UK, It also topped the Official Charts Company, and was certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales over 811.000 copies. ‘Dilemma’ topped the charts in several countries around the world including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland and Switzerland. It was certified Triple Platinum In Australia and Double Platinum in Norway. In Belgium, New Zealand and Switzerland it was certified Platinum. The song sold over 1 million copies ringtones in Japan alone.

Artist’s age on Release Date: Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. aka Nelly was 28 years old and Kelendria Trene aka Kelly Rowland was 21 years old when they released this song.

Cover Versions: Very few amateur artists covered this song on Youtube.