Released October 9, 2007 Recorded 2007 Length 3:50 | Format CD
digital download Genre Southern hip hop Label Atlantic | |
"Low" is the debut single by American rapper Flo Rida, featured on his debut studio album Mail on Sunday and also featured on the soundtrack to the 2008 film Step Up 2: The Streets. The song features and was co-written by fellow American rapper T-Pain. There is also a remix in which the hook is sung by Flo Rida rather than T-Pain. An official remix was made which features Pitbull and T-Pain. With its catchy, up-tempo and club-oriented Southern hip hop rhythms, the song peaked at the summit of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Contents
The song was a massive success worldwide and was the longest-running number-one single of 2008 in the United States, spending ten consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. With over six million digital downloads, it has been certified 8× Platinum by the RIAA, and was the most downloaded single of the 2000s decade, measured by paid digital downloads. The song was named third on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs of the Decade.
Music and lyrics
Several of T-Pain's stylistic effects are present in this song, including Auto-Tune and call and answer during the chorus. It contains electronic elements featuring 808-style drums and an arpeggiated note sequence instead of a chord progression. Flo Rida has sexually charged (but not explicit) lyrics, for example he refers to a woman's buttocks as "birthday cakes" which "stole the show". T-Pain also relies heavily on synthesizers. The song is written in the key of E♭ minor. A Harmonic minor melody is played over the E♭ minor, and at different times different instrumentation cycles, i.e. sometimes only the synthesizer plays, sometimes only the bass, sometimes only the vocals. Flo Rida uses a style that is common in 1990s hip-hop party music. "Low" is written in common time with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute while T-Pain's vocal range spans nearly two to three octaves from B♭1 to F♯3.
The song makes references to a "Shawty" in a club who is wearing Apple Bottom jeans and boots with fur. "Shawty" also wears baggy sweat pants and Reeboks with the straps. The lyrics repeatedly suggest that Shawty is extremely attractive and possesses great skill in dancing provocatively. In particular, the song describes one of her more memorable dance sequences as giving her buttocks (colloquially referred to as a booty) a smack prior to "getting low".
Music video
The music video of "Low" was directed by Bernard Gourley and contains certain clips from Step Up 2: The Streets. It also contains cameos from Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Cool & Dre, Briana Evigan, Torch and Gunplay of Triple C's and Jermaine Dupri. Also, T-Pain and Flo Rida are in a nightclub in a few scenes. The music video reached the number one spot on 106 & Park for five days and 22 days on TRL. The music video was also nominated at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Male Video and Best Hip-Hop Video, but lost to Chris Brown's "With You" (Best Male Video) and Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" (Best Hip-Hop Video) music videos.
Track listing
European CD single
- "Low" – 3:53
- "Low" (Travis Barker Remix) – 4:15
Europe maxi-CD
- "Low" – 3:53
- "Low" (Instrumental) – 3:53
- "Birthday" (Amended Version)
- "Low" (Video)
Chart performance
The song debuted at number 91 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for the week of November 6, 2007, and reached number one for the week of December 30, 2007. The song generated the second greatest one-week digital sales in the history of Billboard's Digital Songs chart (behind Flo Rida's "Right Round"), with 467,000 digital copies in one week. "Low" was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for ten weeks and remained in the top ten of the chart for 23 weeks, making it both T-Pain and Flo Rida's most successful single to date. The song stayed on the Hot 100 for 39 weeks, before dropping out in June 2008.
The song was dethroned on the Hot 100 by Usher's "Love in This Club" featuring Young Jeezy. As the first number one on the Hot 100 of 2008, "Low" held the top position longer than any song did in 2008 (see List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 2008), and was the longest-running Hot 100 number one single since Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable." The song is also the longest-running number one single in the history of the Billboard Digital Songs chart, topping the chart for 13 weeks, and also on the now-defunct Pop 100 chart, where it ruled for 12 weeks. For the week of June 29, 2008, it became the first song ever to sell four million digital copies in the US, and then for the week of June 21, 2009, the first to sell over five million copies. It was best-selling digitally-downloaded song of all time until it was surpassed by The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" in May 2010. The song sold over six million in digital sales by August 7, 2011, and reached its seven millionth sales mark in sales in June 2014.
The physical release of the single occurred in the UK for the week of March 24, 2008. For the week of July 20, 2008, the song moved up to number 19 on the UK Singles Chart, several months after its official release. Although it failed to reach number one in the UK, it amassed 53 weeks inside the UK top 75 (making it the joint 20th longest-runner of all-time), and 75 weeks inside the top 100. As of January 2012, the song has sold 613,434 copies in the UK.
The song was ranked at number 23 on Billboard's All Time Hot 100 for the 50th anniversary of the chart. The song was also ranked the number-one song for 2008 in Billboard's ranking of the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2008. For the week of December 28, 2008, it was listed at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart year-end countdown and was named the highest-selling single in Australia in 2008.
Cover versions and media usage
The song was performed live with the band Simple Plan at the 2008 MuchMusic Video Awards. Albuquerque, New Mexico based Crunkcore group Brokencyde released a cover of this song on "THA $C3N3 MiXTaPe" in 2008. Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker added a drum version cover of the song. On October 23, 2012, the cast of The Big Bang Theory made a flashmob during the live taping of an episode, featuring the song as well as others. The song was featured in Suburgatory. The song was featured in Tropic Thunder.