"The King and I" (stylized as "The King & I") is a song by American rapper

Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclai ...

featuring American singer CeeLo Green. It was released on June 16, 2022, as the fourth single from the soundtrack to the Elvis Presley biopic film '' Elvis'' (2022). It was later included on Eminem's second greatest hits album, '' Curtain Call 2'', through Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and

Interscope Records Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner Mus ...

. Along with " From the D 2 the LBC", the song was received a Outstanding National Single nomination at the 2023 Detroit Music Awards, but lost to Lizzo's “ About Damn Time”.

Background

In an interview for

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

, CeeLo Green spoke about the collaboration process, saying, "Me and Eminem have been friends for years; I've longed for an opportunity to work with him. He said, 'Hey man, can you do this for me? I need it really quickly, I need it tonight.' So when Eminem says he needs something tonight, you deliver."

Composition

Produced by Dr. Dre and

, the song samples Presley's " Jailhouse Rock", and showcases the two artists taking turns paying homage to Presley: "'Cause me and Elvis jailed together like cellmates / Yeah, this the jailhouse, bitch and I don’t give a..." raps Eminem, before being joined by Green on the hook: "Middle fingers up, we 'bout to do this shit again". Eminem also references and interpolates Presley's song " Blue Suede Shoes" in a similar way he did on his song "My 1st Single" from ''Encore''. Eminem name-drops rappers

2 Chainz Tauheed K. Epps (born September 12, 1977), known professionally as 2 Chainz (or Tity Boi), is an American rapper. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, he initially gained recognition as one-half of the Southern hip hop duo Playaz Circle, al ...

and Wiz Khalifa, and reflects on the critics who have hounded his career: "I stole Black music, yeah, true / (For what?) Perhaps used it as a tool to combat school kids". He also points out the parallels between him and Elvis in the music industry: "One, he’s pale as me / Second, we both been hailed as king / He used to rock the jailhouse and I used to rock The Shelter."

Charts

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King and I 2022 songs 2022 singles Eminem songs CeeLo Green songs Shady Records singles Aftermath Entertainment singles Interscope Records singles Song recordings produced by Dr. Dre Song recordings produced by Eminem