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What About Us? (Brandy song)

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"What About Us?"
Single by Brandy
from the album Full Moon
ReleasedJanuary 1, 2002 (2002-01-01)
Recorded2001
Studio
GenreElectro-funk[1]
Length4:10
LabelAtlantic
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Rodney Jerkins
Brandy singles chronology
"Another Day in Paradise"
(2001) 		"What About Us?"
(2002) 		"Full Moon"
(2002)

"What About Us?" is a song by American singer Brandy from her third studio album, Full Moon (2002). It was written by LaShawn Daniels, Rodney Jerkins, Kenisha Pratt, Nora Payne and Norwood, featuring main production by Jerkins. An offbeat, aggressive high-tech track, the song's development was motivated by the fact that the singer wanted something different–an aggressive, sexier and edgier sound with a message which would empower women while also reflecting her own growth and maturity.

"What About Us?" was released as the lead single from Full Moon on January 1, 2002, by Atlantic Records. A commercial success, it peaked at number seven on the US Billboard Hot 100, also reaching the top ten in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Steve "Silk" Hurley's remix of the song received a nomination for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards (2003).

The accompanying music video for "What About Us?" was directed by Dave Meyers and was filmed in Culver City, California in December 2001. It premiered via MTV on January 10, 2002. Primarily shot in front of a greenscreen, the highly-animated, futuristic video introduced a sexier image of the former teen singer, portraying her as a male-ruling character in an alternate universe. It was nominated for the Viewer's Choice Award at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards.

Background and development

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After the end of the promotional tour for her second studio album Never Say Never (1998), the end of her UPN sitcom Moesha (1996–2001) and a flurry of tabloid headlines discussing her nervous breakdown in November 1999,[2] Norwood went on a lengthy hiatus to reflect and take some introspective looks.[3] In mid-2000, she started reconsecrating herself on her musical career, contributing songs to albums such as Urban Renewal (2001), which introduced a scratchy, evocative edge to Norwood's voice, now having a deeper and warmer tone with a textured lower register and notably stronger falsetto.[4] In late 2000, Norwood finally began conceiving ideas for a third studio album with her label Atlantic Records.[3] While Rodney Jerkins, the main producer of her previous album, and his team, had been working on several new songs for the singer's upcoming project in hopes of recreating the winning chemistry of Never Say Never,[5] Norwood wanted to make sure that she was gaining more creative control over the project and thus, arranged meetings with all her writers and musicians to discuss the lyricals topics and sounds she wanted for the album.[3]

Recording and production

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"What About Us?" was one of a couple of new tracks Jerkins worked on while he was putting the finishing touches on Full Moon in Los Angeles.[6] After playing it to her, enthusiastic Norwood asked Jerkins to save the "offbeat, aggressive high-tech track" for the album: "I was like 'Oh my God, Rodney, this is it", she said in an interview with MTV News the following year. "This is exactly what the industry needs. We can maybe change the game with this.' He said, 'Yeah, this is what I'm going for'."[6] She eventually consulted longtime collaborators LaShawn Daniels, Nora Payne and Kenisha Pratt to rewrite several lyrics on the song, saying: "I told them what I wanted to talk about. 'This is an aggressive record – it's edgy, it's sexy. I wanna sing about something that's sexy and edgy.' I revisited my past in my mind and kind of told them what I wanna talk about."[6]

Norwood has noted that it took the team a while to get it because she didn't want "that sound that's already saturated the industry. It's important to me to be a trendsetter and change the game. It was a great feeling to see Rodney soar like that."[7] Norwood co-wrote the lyrics with Daniels, Payne and Pratt, also setting the background track. The song was mixed by Paul Foley and Fabian Marascuillo at Darkchild Studios in Pleasantville, New Jersey, while Norwood recorded the song at the Hit Factory Criteria in Miami.[8]

Music and lyrics

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An electro-funk song,[1] "What About Us?", was described as being "offbeat",[9] due to its production which features a "chopping pace and snarky sound effects mugging in the background".[10] The song is four minutes and ten seconds long and includes 12 instruments: Norwood's vocals, six different synths, two percussions and drums. According to the notes published on Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, "What About Us?" features 96 beats per minute, which is a moderate tempo. It was written in C minor and ranges from the note C 2 to Ab 4 .[11] In the book Musical Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction (2010), author Anne Danielsen analyzed "What About Us?", describing it as "very complex" and characterized by its multilinear texture and unstable groove.[12]

Lyrically, the song features a protagonist describing the aftermaths of an untrue love, confronting her former lover with the current point of the one-sided attachment. "It was about being in a relationship that's not working anymore", Norwood said in 2005, adding that it "was a little more aggressive and different for me. I'd say it was a little bit ahead of its time..."[13]

Release

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AOL Music hosted the exclusive global premiere of "What About Us?", starting January 2, 2002. The full song with a special recorded introduction from Norwood was first made available for streaming on demand on the AOL service First Listen, across AOL's Web Properties including Netscape, AIM, ICQ and CompuServe, as well as on its international services in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.[14] The song was streamed over 750,000 times in one day.[14]

"What About Us?" was remixed by several producers and DJs, also spawning respective versions with rappers Nas and Joe Budden. The Simon Vegas Remix was played on radios and television instead of the original version in some countries, including Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Critical reception

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"What About Us?" received a mixed to positive response from music critics, who complimented its production and compared it to Janet Jackson's "Control" (1986), which Norwood has cited as an influence on the song.[15] Chuck Taylor from Billboard felt the track was "so striking [that] it's destined to one of those marked hate-it-or-love-it songs".[16] While he criticized Norwood's "generic voice" over the track, he commended the complex but instant structure of the song, writing that "certainly, this is an effective way to let the world know that this charmer has returned and it's destined to be a monster at radio."[16] James Poletti from Dotmusic called the song "disorientating brilliance" and felt that it was "Jerkins' most radical production for some time".[17] Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine wrote that the song was "lifting Brandy's typically schmaltzy brand of pop-R&B to a new, edgier plateau [...] With offbeat "What About Us," an assessment of post-break-up collateral damage, [producer] Rodney Jerkins dresses up his signature bass-heavy production in gritty, oft-sadistic outfits."[9] In his album review of Full Moon, Arion Berger declared "What About Us?" the "bright spot" on the album, "with its awkward, chopping pace and snarky sound effects mugging in the background".[10]

Music Week felt that "this Rodney Jerkins production attempts to imitate Timbaland but does not quite pull it off."[18] NME writer Peter Robinson praised "What About Us?" and wrote: "Brandy’s been off the scene for a while but 'What About Us?' rattles her back to life with the force and devastation of a tortoise being plucked from the airing cupboard and set on fire: this rocks hard, it's the tippest of the top, it gets better with every single listen, and it might well be Rodney's best work since 'Say My Name'."[19] Somewhat critical of the song, his colleague Piers Martin found that it was "a slippery, twitching slab of computer funk that thrusts Brandy, fleetingly, into the 21st century",[20] while Devon Thomas from The Michigan Daily called it "guaranteed mainstream club play".[21] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine ranked the song among his three favorite tracks from Full Moon along with the title track and "He Is".[22]

Accolades

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Awards and nominations for "What About Us?"
Year Award Category Result Ref.
2002 MTV Video Music Award Viewer's Choice Nominated
[23]
2003 Grammy Award Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical Nominated
[24]
2003 BMI Urban Award Award-Winning Song Won
[25]

Commercial performance

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"What About Us?" debuted at number 42 on the US Billboard Hot 100 on January 26, 2002.[26] It was the "Hot Shot Debut" of the week and marked both Norwood's first entry of the decade and her first appearance on the chart since "U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To)" (1999).[26] The song peaked at number seven, becoming Norwood's seventh top-ten single and staying on the chart for 18 weeks; it remained the chart's highest debut of 2002.[27] On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, the song debuted at number 44, while debuting at number 39 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart.[28] It eventually peaked at number three on the former, becoming her highest-charting song since "Have You Ever?" (1998).[29] In addition, "What About Us?" peaked within the top five on the Rhythmic chart, and the top 20 on both the Mainstream Top 40 and the Top 40 Tracks.[29]

Music video

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The song's music video was directed by Dave Meyers and produced by Ron Mohrhoff. It was entirely filmed at the Ten 9 Fifty Studios in Culver City, California on November 29–30, 2001, and features close shots and dance sequences using greenscreen technique.[30][31] The video does not have a substantial plot but focuses on capturing Norwood's "moments as a performer," dealing with "different set-ups" and "beauty, fashion, edginess, hip."[32] To that end, she added in an interview with MTV, it speaks for all girls who've been wronged by selfish, evil lovers. "The hurt and the pain songs really, really work," she observed, articulating the pain of "women, from 15, or 13 on up [...] they have crushes and they get hurt." The video was all about "showing the world a new side of me," she added.[32]

The video for "What About Us?" saw Norwood abandon her teenage appeal for a more adult and sensual edginess.[32]

Set in a science fiction world, the video opens with a digitized long shot of Norwood standing atop a pyramid of kneeling, taut men, which PopMatters described as appearing like the "tragically punished human in Greek mythology", all holding up Norwood on her pedestal. The camera closes on her, and depicts Norwood placing mementos of her now-dead relationship in a chest, including a promise written on parchment, a watch on a chain, a teddy bear.[32] From here, the scene switches into a futuristic wind tunnel, where she wields a bat against cell phones, two-way pagers, and a flying male, whose sunglasses she grabs off. While the video intercuts scenes of Norwood performing on a platform with two black-painted men in collars and leashes, it ends with her sitting in the passenger's seat in a lowrider, amid a sea of lowriders. The final scenes feature cameo appearances by Rodney Jerkins and Norwood's younger brother Ray J.[32]

The final edit of "What About Us?" world premiered at the end of its Making the Video episode on MTV on January 10, 2002.[30] It debuted on the network's Total Request Live top ten video countdown on January 25.[33] The video entered the MuchMusic Countdown in Canada in the week ending February 8, and it peaked at number seven in the week ending February 22.[34] The video generally received mixed reviews from critics, who called it "a surprisingly hard, ostensibly angry, and not very adventurous video" and compared it to Norwood's Matrix-influenced remix video for U Don't Know Me (Like U Used To)".[32] It was nominated for the Viewer's Choice Award at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards but lost to Michelle Branch's video for "Everywhere".[35]

Track listings

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Credits and personnel

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Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Full Moon.[8]

Charts

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Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[79] Gold 35,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Release history

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Release dates and formats for "What About Us?"
Region Date Format(s) Label(s) Ref(s).
United States January 1, 2002 7-inch vinyl Atlantic
[53]
January 2, 2002 Streaming
[14]
January 22, 2002
[80][81]
January 29, 2002 12-inch vinyl
[82]
Germany February 5, 2002 Maxi CD Warner Music
[53]
United Kingdom February 11, 2002
Atlantic [83][84]
Australia February 18, 2002 Maxi CD Warner Music [85]
France February 19, 2002
  • 12-inch vinyl
  • CD
  • maxi CD
 East West
[86][87][88]

References

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Bibliography

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