"Now That We Found Love" (also known as "Now That We've Found Love") is a song written by
Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff and originally recorded by American R&B/soul vocal group
The O'Jays
The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1958 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert, Walter Lee Williams, William Powell, Bobby Massey, and Bill Isles. The O'Jays made their first chart appearance with the minor ...
for their seventh album, ''
Ship Ahoy
''Ship Ahoy'' is a 1942 American musical-comedy film directed by Edward Buzzell and starring Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton. It was produced by MGM.
Background
''Ship Ahoy'' was the first of two films in which Powell and Skelton co-starred. It ...
'' (1973).
Heavy D and the Boyz version
American group
Heavy D & the Boyz
Dwight Arrington MyersCuda, Heidi Sigmund Keeping it reel. ''Vibe'' ("born Dwight Arrington Myers")Samuels, Anita M. (January 12' 1996)Heavy D, the C.E.O. ''New York Times'' (May 24, 1967 – November 8, 2011), known professionally as Heav ...
released their very successful
dance/
house-cover of "Now That We Found Love" in 1991. It was produced by
Teddy Riley
Edward Theodore Riley (born October 8, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer credited with the creation of the New Jack Swing genre. Riley credits Barry Michael Cooper with giving the genre its name.Hogan, Paul. "Tedd ...
and remains their biggest hit. The song was released as the second single from their third album, ''
Peaceful Journey
''Peaceful Journey'' is the third album by rap group Heavy D & the Boyz.
Reception
The album was released on July 2, 1991, for Uptown Records and was produced by Pete Rock, DJ Eddie F, Teddy Riley (producer), Teddy Riley, Marley Marl and Howie ...
'' (1991), and peaked at number two in the UK and number 11 in the US.
Critical reception
Jesse Ducker from Albumism described the song as "a catchy and extremely successful pairing with producer
Riley, featuring
Aaron Hall’s powerful vocals on the chorus. The song takes some of its inspiration from the
O'Jays
The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1958 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert, Walter Lee Williams, William Powell, Bobby Massey, and Bill Isles. The O'Jays made their first chart appearance with the minor h ...
' song of the same name, but has the most in common with
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
group
Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
’s version of the track.
Heavy D
Dwight Arrington MyersCuda, Heidi Sigmund Keeping it reel. '' Vibe'' ("born Dwight Arrington Myers")Samuels, Anita M. (January 12' 1996)Heavy D, the C.E.O. ''New York Times'' (May 24, 1967 – November 8, 2011), known professionally as Hea ...
plays to his strengths here, celebrating the love he’s cultivated and finding new ways to explore its dynamics."
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
editor Alex Henderson said that the remake is "melodic", and "fun and escapist in nature".
Larry Flick from ''
Billboard'' viewed it as a "fab
hip-house
Hip house, also known as rap house or house rap, is a musical genre that mixes elements of house music and hip hop, that originated in both London, United Kingdom and Chicago, United States in the mid to late 1980s.
British group the Beatmast ...
interpretation" and "an invigorating peak-hour anthem". He noted that the producer "adds a mainstream gloss that could spark a top 40 breakthrough hit."
''
BuzzFeed'' ranked it number 59 in their list of "The 101 Greatest Dance Songs Of the '90s" in 2017. In their review of the ''
Peaceful Journey
''Peaceful Journey'' is the third album by rap group Heavy D & the Boyz.
Reception
The album was released on July 2, 1991, for Uptown Records and was produced by Pete Rock, DJ Eddie F, Teddy Riley (producer), Teddy Riley, Marley Marl and Howie ...
'' album, Alex Henderson and Bryan Devane for ''
Cashbox'' stated that this is a song "to look out for". James Bernard from ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...
'' called it a "fast-paced hip-house jam". Australian music channel
Max included it in their list of "1000 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2013.
James Hamilton from ''
Music Week
''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future.
History
Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...
'' deemed it a "jaunty singalong stereo rap". Martin Aston from the magazine's ''RM'' Dance Update said that the track "has been given a bouncy, slick gloss, with a typically snappy slice of rap from the heavyweight poet." Eric Deggans from ''
The Pittsburgh Press
''The Pittsburgh Press'' (formerly ''The Pittsburg Press'' and originally ''The Evening Penny Press'') was a major afternoon daily newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1884 to 1992. At one time, the ''Press'' was the second larg ...
'' described it as "
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
-flavored". Marc Andrews from ''
Smash Hits'' complimented it as "rap at its most jolly and fun-filled".
Chart performance
"Now That We Found Love" was very successful on the singles charts on several continents. In Europe, it reached number two in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. In the latter, the single peaked in its fourth week at the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
, on July 21, 1991. It was held off the top spot by
Bryan Adams
Bryan Guy Adams (born 5 November 1959) is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, composer, and photographer. He has been cited as one of the best-selling music artists of all time, and is estimated to have sold between 75 million and mor ...
' "
(Everything I Do) I Do It For You
"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. Written by Adams, Michael Kamen, and Robert John "Mutt" Lange, the power ballad was the lead single for both the soundtrack album from the 1991 film '' Rob ...
". On the
UK Dance Singles Chart
The UK Dance Singles Chart and the UK Dance Albums Chart are music charts compiled in the United Kingdom by the Official Charts Company from sales of songs in the dance music genre (e.g. house, trance, drum and bass, garage, synthpop) in record ...
, it hit number four. Additionally, the single peaked within the Top 10 also in Austria, Belgium, Denmark (number three), Germany, Greece, Ireland, Norway, Spain and Switzerland, as well as on the
Eurochart Hot 100, where it made it to number four in September 1991. Outside Europe, it peaked at number-one on the ''
RPM
Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines.
Standards
ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...
'' Dance/Urban chart in Canada, number two on the ''
Billboard''
Hot Dance Club Play
Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as th ...
chart and number eleven on the ''Billboard''
Hot 100 in the US. In Oceania, "Now That We Found Love" went to number six in Australia and number ten in New Zealand. It was awarded with a
gold record
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
in the United States, with a sale of 500,000 singles.
Music video
The accompanying
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
for "Now That We Found Love" was directed by Drew Carolan. It was later published on Heavy D's official
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
channel in October 2009. The video has amassed over 38 million views as of September 2022.
Track listing
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Other cover versions; samples
*A
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
-
disco hit by the reggae band
Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
(1978). This version was released as a single in 1978 by
Island Records and peaked at number 10 in the UK. In the US, it went to number 47 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot Soul Singles chart.
* A sample of the song is used in the
Stereo MC's chart hit "
Connected
Connected may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Connected'' (2008 film), a Hong Kong remake of the American movie ''Cellular''
* '' Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology'', a 2011 documentary film
* ''Connected'' (2015 TV ...
". It's the passage with the words "Make daddy shoot".
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1973 songs
1978 singles
1991 singles
Heavy D songs
The O'Jays songs
Songs written by Leon Huff
Songs written by Kenny Gamble
Song recordings produced by Teddy Riley
Reggae fusion songs
Island Records singles
Uptown Records singles
Songs written by Heavy D