"I Love U" is a song recorded by American recording artist

Tila Tequila Nguyễn Thị Thiên Thanh (born October 24, 1981), better known by her stage names Tila Tequila, Tila Nguyen, Miss Tila and Tornado Thien, is an American television and social media personality. She first gained recognition for her active p ...

. It was written by Tequila, Craig Love and Jonathan Smith. The song was first released on February 27, 2007, as a limited-time package deal: the track and an exclusive video for 99 cents on iTunes, and became the number one music video download. It was later released on March 13, 2007, by StratArt to other

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without ...

s. Produced by

Lil Jon Jonathan H. Smith (born January 17, 1971) better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, producer and former frontman of the rap group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz. He was instrumental in the emergence of the hip hop subgenre cr ...

, "I Love U" is a hip hop song with elements of

crunk Crunk is a subgenre of hip hop music that emerged in the early 1990s and gained mainstream success during the mid 2000s. Crunk is often up-tempo and one of Southern hip hop's more dance and club oriented subgenres. An archetypal crunk track fre ...

music. Lyrically, it is about a dominant female. "I Love U" received mixed reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. It failed to enter the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, but sold over 13,000 copies in its first week and peaked at number 75 on the

Hot Digital Songs The Digital Songs or Digital Song Sales chart (previously named Hot Digital Songs) ranks the best-selling digital songs in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published by ''Billboard'' magazine. Although it originally starte ...

chart. An accompanying music video was released on February 14, 2007. It first became available through Tequila's official website as a mobile download and later was released to other platforms. The song also became the theme track of Tequila's dating reality show, '' A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila''.

Background

Tequila came to prominence in the mid-2000s mainly due to her high presence on

social networking website A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

Myspace, where she would constantly share photos, videos and music with her fans. Around that time, she first pursued her singing career as the lead singer of rock bands Beyond Betty Jean and Jealousy. After becoming one of the most popular people on the website with over 1.5 million Myspace friends, Tequila decided to focus on her solo career and was ready to release her debut single. She was allegedly offered recording contracts from Jive and Interscope, but refused because she wanted to have full control over her projects. Tequila later commented: "I really wanted to become a pioneer and not fall into a category like everyone else, so I decided to take a gamble on myself. And if I win, I win big."The ARTISTdirect Staff (February 27, 2007)
"Tila Tequila Teams with Lil Jon for Debut Single"

Artistdirect ARTISTdirect is an American online digital media entertainment company. Overview Founded in 1994, it owns several websites, including artistdirect.com and artistdirectinterviews.com. These websites are a group of affiliate websites offering mul ...

. Retrieved on June 25, 2015.

Composition

"I Love U" is a song which runs for a duration of three minutes and 28 seconds. It is set in the simple

time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...

of 4/4, with 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 (ofte ...

of 105 beats per minute. The song starts with a spoken

introduction Introduction, The Introduction, Intro, or The Intro may refer to: General use * Introduction (music), an opening section of a piece of music * Introduction (writing), a beginning section to a book, article or essay which states its purpose and g ...

where Tequila says "I think I love you, but if you ever hurt me I'll fucking kill you," and then transitions into a

beat which is built around a repetitive electric guitar

riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...

and uses strong elements of hip hop music such as

808 808 may refer to: Music * Roland-808, Roland TR-808, a drum machine * 808 (film), ''808'' (film), a documentary about the Roland TR-808 * 808 State, British electronic group * ''808s & Heartbreak'', the fourth studio album by American Hip hop artis ...

bass, claps and hi-hats. Lyrically, the song is about a dominant female. In the chorus, Tequila sings "You better go down when you get with me / You better realize that I'm what you need / You better get here before I count to three / You better do right, I'll fuck you up".

Track listings and formats

*;Digital download (Explicit) #"I Love U" – 3:32 *;Digital download (Clean) #"I Love U" – 3:28 *;Digital download (

Don Diablo Don Pepijn Schipper (; born 27 February 1980), better known by his stage name Don Diablo, is a Dutch DJ, digital artist, record producer, musician and songwriter of electronic dance music from Coevorden. He is one of the pioneers of the future h ...

Remixes) #"I Love U" (Dirty Version) – 3:32 #"I Love U" (Don Diablo Remix) – 3:46 #"I Love U" (Don Diablo's Out in the Country Remix) – 3:18

Credits and personnel

;Personnel *

– vocals, songwriter *Craig Love – songwriter *

– songwriter, producer

Charts

Release history

References

External links

* {{authority control 2007 singles 2007 songs Tila Tequila songs