"Bumble Bee" is a song by Russian-German DJ

Zedd Anton Zaslavski (russian: Антон Заславский; born 2 September 1989), known professionally as Zedd (), is a Russian-born German disc jockey, DJ, record producer, and songwriter. Zedd grew up and began his musical journey in Kaise ...

and Canadian production duo Botnek, from Zedd's second studio album, '' True Colors''. It was written by Zedd, Botnek,

David Gamson David Gamson is an American keyboardist/musician (also a producer, songwriter, arranger, engineer). Originally hailing from New York, he has worked with, among others, Kesha, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie J, Adam Lambert, Chaka Khan, Charli XCX, Meshell ...

and

Roger Troutman Roger Troutman (November 29, 1951 – April 25, 1999), also known as Roger, was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenc ...

and was released on July 10, 2015 as the second

promotional single A promotional recording, or promo, or plug copy, is an audio or video recording distributed free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available. Promos are normally sent directly to broadcasters, such as ...

. The song features additional uncredited

talk box A talk box (also spelled talkbox and talk-box) is an effects unit that allows musicians to modify the sound of a musical instrument by shaping the frequency content of the sound and to apply speech sounds (in the same way as singing) onto the sou ...

vocals from

Chromeo Chromeo is a Canadian electro-funk duo from Montreal, formed in 2002 by musicians David "Dave 1" Macklovitch and Patrick "P-Thugg" Gemayel. Their sound draws from blue-eyed soul, dance music, rock, synth-pop, disco and funk. , the band has rele ...

member Patrick "P-Thugg" Gemayel – which appear halfway through the track – and heavily samples lyrics from Roger Troutman's 1991 song "Break Through". Like Zedd's previous promotional single, "

Addicted to a Memory "Addicted to a Memory" is a song by Russian-German DJ and record producer Zedd and features vocals from American girl group Bahari from his second studio album, '' True Colors''. It was written by Zedd and Matthew Koma and was released on 14 Apri ...

", "Bumble Bee" was also compared to his previous complextro "classics" and true

EDM EDM or E-DM may refer to: Music * Electronic dance music * Early Day Miners, American band Science and technology * Electric dipole moment * Electrical discharge machining * Electronic distance measurement *Entry, Descent, and landing demonstrat ...

sounds; tracks like "

Shave It "Shave It" is a song by Russian-German electronic music producer Zedd. The song was produced and written by Zedd, and released on 4 October 2011 via Skrillex's record label Owsla. The song peaked at number 4 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Dance Club Son ...

" and "Dovregubben".

Background

On June 4, 2014 — approximately one year before the release of '' True Colors'' — Zedd posted a short video clip on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

containing a close-up of a computer that was emitting a low buzzing noise. The post was also captioned with bumble bee emoticons. In an interview with EDMTunes.com Botnek said: "Zedd approached us after hearing our edit of everyone’s favourite song "

Animals Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in ...

". We had to wrap our heads around what magic was in that edit that he loved, and came up with the drop you hear now in "Bumble Bee". He immediately wrote back saying he loved it and only hours later had written and sent over the progression that's still there in the track. I remember listening to it on my phone and being immediately down with it. So the idea was completely finished in one day really!"

Composition

"Bumble Bee" is a

complextro Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 130 beats per minute. The term has been used to describe the music of many ''DJ Mag'' Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Steve Aoki ...

song that was described as one of the few club-styled tracks on the album. It lasts four minutes and seven seconds and has a

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

of 128 BPM. EDMTunes.com said: "Complextro, as it is known, has since waned in popularity and many of its most prominent artists sound have shifted their sound, but that doesn't mean it ceased to exist. In fact, there was one track on ''True Colors'' that perfectly embodied the high intensity and fast pace of complextro and it was the collaboration with electro-duo Botnek known as 'Bumble Bee.'"

Track listing

*Digital download # "Bumble Bee" – 4:07 *Digital download (Extended Mix) # "Bumble Bee" – 4:20

References

{{authority control 2015 songs Songs written by David Gamson Songs written by Roger Troutman Zedd songs Songs written by Zedd Interscope Records singles