Ellie Goulding performs during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2024 in Hollywood, California.
Christopher Polk for Penske Media
“Mile High Memories” from Future and Metro Boomin‘s latest album We Still Don’t Trust You evoked an unexpected memory from pop music: The song contains a sample of Ellie Goulding‘s 2012 track “Hanging On.” And it’s far from the only rap song to sample the English electro-pop singer-songwriter.
Drake famously sampled the two-time Grammy-nominated artist’s “Don’t Say a Word” on the Jay-Z-assisted “Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2,” which she pointed out in a 2020 TikTok video. Her covers of Active Child‘s “Hanging On” and The Weeknd‘s “High For This,” the latter of which is sampled on Soulja Boy‘s “Rockstar,” have extended the original songs’ histories and brought them to new genre territories. And her backwards intros (think Missy Elliott’s “Work It”) from “Hanging On” and “Starry Eyed” are fascinating to follow along to in “Mile High Memories” and “I Know” by French Montana, featuring Chinx.
An Ellie Goulding sample in rap music is so nice, Young Thug had to use it twice. He and Rich Homie Quan sampled “Beating Heart” on “Love Me” in August 2015, and one month later, Thug sampled “Hanging On” on “Calling Your Name.” (“Hanging On” got a remix from British rapper Tinie Tempah.) And one MC’s sampling history with EG led to an actual collaboration between the two: Goulding tapped Big Sean for “Easy Lover” from her last studio album Higher Than Heaven after he sampled “Fighter Plane” on his song “High,” featuring Wiz Khalifa and Chiddy Bang.
Billboard rounded up 11 rap songs that have sampled Ellie Goulding, in order of newest to oldest.
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Future & Metro Boomin, “Mile High Memories”
Future and Metro Boomin’s “Mile High Memories” from their latest collab album We Still Don’t Trust You samples Goulding’s electrifying cover of Active Child’s “Hanging On” from his 2011 debut album You Are All I See. Her backwards intro — “(dna uoY)/ (dna uoY)/ (Yeah, yeah)/ (dna uoY)/ (no, tsuj I)/ (oN) — is heard throughout “Mile High Memories.”
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Lil Baby, “In A Minute”
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Fivio Foreign feat. Lil Tjay & Yung Bleu, “World Watching”
Fivio Foreign’s “World Watching,” featuring Lil Tjay and Yung Bleu, from his 2022 album B.I.B.L.E. samples Goulding’s 2010 Hot 100 No. 2 smash “Lights” from the Bright Lights reissue of her debut album of the same name. Fivio sampled other 2010s songs on his debut album, including The Chainsmokers’ “New York City” on “City of Gods” (with Ye and Alicia Keys) and Far East Movement’s “Rocketeer” on “Paris to Tokyo” with The Kid LAROI.
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French Montana feat. Chinx, “I Know”
French Montana’s “I Know,” featuring Chinx, from his 2020 album CB5 samples Goulding’s 2010 track “Starry Eyed” from her debut album Lights. Her backwards intro — “Oh, oh, starry-eyed/ Hip, oh, sta-a-a-a—/ Oh, oh, deye-yrrats/ swolg ydobyrevE, starry-eyed” — is heard throughout “I Know.”
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Soulja Boy, “Rockstar”
Soulja Boy’s “Rockstar” from his 2016 mixtape of the same name samples Goulding’s spine-chilling cover of The Weeknd’s “High For This” from his 2011 mixtape House of Balloons. Goulding and The Weeknd both contributed Hot 100 No. 3 hits to the 2015 Fifty Shades of Grey (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack): She performed “Love Me Like You Do,” which was nominated for two Grammys and a Golden Globe, and he performed “Earned It,” which was up for three Grammys (winning one for best R&B performance) and an Oscar.
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Vic Mensa & Skrillex, “No Chill”
Vic Mensa & Skrillex’s 2016 collaboration “No Chill” samples Goulding’s Hot 100 No. 100 hit “Explosions” from her 2012 album Halcyon. The operatic intro is heard throughout “No Chill.”
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Young Thug, “Calling Your Name”
Young Thug’s “Calling Your Name” from his 2015 mixtape Slime Season samples Goulding’s “Hanging On” from the 2013 Halcyon Days reissue of her sophomore album. The first half of her first verse — “You know we can get away/ Because I’m calling your name” — is sampled and looped throughout “Calling Your Name,” and Thugger even harmonizes with Goulding in his song’s intro and outro with a screeching falsetto.
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Rich Homie Quan & Young Thug, “Love Me”
Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug’s “Love Me” from the former’s 2015 album No Label Vol. 2 samples Goulding’s “Beating Heart” from the 2014 Divergent: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. The chorus of Goulding’s song — starting with the line “Wanna hear your beating heart tonight” — is faintly heard throughout “Love Me,” which features Thug’s inspired hook of “I want you to love me forever.”
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Drake & Jay-Z, “Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2”
Drake and Jay-Z’s “Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2” from the former’s 2013 album Nothing Was The Same samples Goulding’s “Don’t Say a Word,” opening track of her 2012 album Halcyon. Her ethereal intro vocal riffs are sampled and looped throughout “Pound Cake,” which reached No. 65 on the Hot 100 and No. 24 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
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Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa & Chiddy Bang, “High”
Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa and Chiddy Bang’s “High” from the former’s 2011 debut album Finally Famous samples Goulding’s “Fighter Plane” B-side to her 2009 debut single “Under the Sheets.” Twelve years later, she tapped Big Sean to be the featured artist on her “Easy Lover” single from 2023 album Higher Than Heaven. “Easy Lover” reached No. 21 on Adult Pop Airplay and No. 29 on Pop Airplay.
“We’ve stayed in touch for years because he sampled me a couple of times,” Goulding told Billboard in 2022. “I always feel like there’s something pretty special in someone who appreciates me that early on as an an artist, so I’ve stayed in touch with everyone from that era, in particular him because I think’s he’s consistently been a brilliant artist. At some point we were going to do a collab, and it just happened to be this song.”
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Lupe Fiasco, “Lightwork”