"I Need a Dollar" is a song performed by American singer

Aloe Blacc Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III (born January 7, 1979), known professionally by his stage name Aloe Blacc (), is an American singer, songwriter and rapper. He is best known for his singles " I Need a Dollar", " The Man", which topped the charts in t ...

, written by Blacc, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon and Jeff Dynamite. It is the intro song for the HBO show ''

How to Make It in America ''How to Make It in America'' is an American comedy-drama television series that ran on HBO from February 14, 2010, to November 20, 2011. The series follows the lives of Ben Epstein ( Bryan Greenberg) and his friend Cam Calderon ( Victor Rasuk) a ...

'', and was featured as the iTunes Single of the Week. It also featured in the game

Fight Night Champion ''Fight Night Champion'' is a boxing video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fifth and last entry in the ''Fight Night'' series and was released in March 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game takes ...

. Blacc has performed the song live on '' Later... with Jools Holland'', ''

The Graham Norton Show ''The Graham Norton Show'' is a British comedy chat show presented by Graham Norton. It was initially broadcast on BBC Two, from 22 February 2007, before moving to BBC One in October 2009. It currently airs on Friday evenings, with Norton s ...

'', '' Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'', and '' Conan''. In April 2011, it was featured in a commercial for Boost Mobile wireless services. This song also speeds up by 2bpm through it.

Music video

The standard version of the song has two music videos. The first, released in 2010, was filmed in New York, and features the screen being split in half. The right side shows Blacc singing inside an apartment while the left side shows a man walking through the streets of New York. Once Aloe enters the left side after the line "Maybe it's inside the bottle" and performs at a bar, the song changes to "Life So Hard". The second, released in 2011, was filmed in and around

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

and was directed by Derek Pike. The video shows Blacc walking alone along a highway in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

, and then hitching a ride to Las Vegas, where he finds a dollar coin on the casino floor, uses it to play a slot machine, and wins.

Formats and track listings

;UK digital single #"I Need a Dollar" – 4:05 #"I Need a Dollar" (Radio Mix) – 3:22 #"I Need a Dollar" (

Zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

Remix) – 5:48 #"I Need a Dollar" (Blue Fear Trance Remix) – 10:49 ;German digital single #"I Need a Dollar" – 4:02 #"I Need a Dollar" (

Tensnake Marco Niemerski, known professionally as Tensnake (born 1975), is a German DJ and producer from Hamburg best known for his 2010 track " Coma Cat", which appeared on at least 15 compilations that year. "Coma Cat" reached number 85 on the UK Singl ...

Remix) – 6:45 #"I Need a Dollar" (M.Arfmann & Chassy Wezar RMX) – 3:27

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Samples and covers

Various hip-hop artists have sampled "I Need a Dollar" or freestyled over the instrumental, including

Yelawolf Michael Wayne Atha (born December 30, 1979), better known by his stage name Yelawolf, is an American rapper. Born in Alabama and raised in Tennessee, he embarked on his career independently in 2005, releasing one extended play (EP) and four mixta ...

, T.I.,

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Dumbfoundead Jonathan Edgar Park (born February 18, 1986), known by his stage name Dumbfoundead (), is an Argentinian-born American rapper and actor. He began his career in the 2000s as a battle rapper in Los Angeles and has since become one of the most prom ...

Chris Webby Christian Walcott Webster (born October 13, 1988), better known by his stage name Chris Webby, is an American rapper from Norwalk, Connecticut. Chris Webby has released many mixtapes such as the DJ Drama-hosted ''Bars On Me'' (2012) and his EP ...

MGK Colson Baker (born April 22, 1990), known professionally as Machine Gun Kelly (MGK), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. He is noted for his genre duality across alternative rock with Hip hop music, hip hop. Machine Gun Ke ...

, and Mac Miller, and

Sammy Adams Samuel Adams Wisner (born August 14, 1987) is an American rapper, singer and songwriter. Early years Sammy Adams was born as Samuel Adams Wisner on August 14, 1987, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Kata Hull and Chuck Wisner. He and his family m ...

. Australian artist

Xavier Rudd Xavier Rudd (born 29 May 1978) is an Australian singer, songwriter, musician, and multi-instrumentalist. Several of Rudd's songs incorporate socially conscious themes, such as spirituality, humanity, environmentalism and the rights of Indigen ...

covered "I Need a Dollar" on ' Like a Version', a segment on the Australian radio station '

Triple J Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners of alternative music, which began broadcasting in January 1975. The station also places a greater emphasis on broad ...

' British artists

Ed Solo Ed Solo (born Ed Bickley) is a British disc jockey and record producer of electronic dance music. He has worked with artists including Blak Twang, Deekline, MC Det, Fatboy Slim, Roots Manuva, Shy FX, DJ Swift, DJ Trace and Elisabeth Troy. Ca ...

and

Deekline Deekline is a British producer and DJ of breakbeat, breakstep, drum and bass and garage music. He is the innovator of breakstep music which is bass-heavy, breakbeat-infused 2-step, first characterised in his 1999 hit " I Don't Smoke", which r ...

together remixed "I Need A Dollar" and released it as a single with the same name.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Aloe Blacc songs 2010 singles Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders) number-one singles Number-one singles in Israel Songs about poverty 2010 songs Songs written by Aloe Blacc Sony Music UK singles Songs written by Nick Movshon