Songfacts®:

• This fiery collaboration between Chase & Status and Stormzy finds the grime rapper calling out feeble MCs who lack metaphorical backbone. Stormzy's sharp, incisive rhymes are complemented by the duo's signature crisp, booming production.
• "Backbone" marks Stormzy's debut in the drum 'n' bass genre.
  
  "We've been fans of Stormzy since he first came on the scene many many moons ago like everyone else in the whole world," Chase & Status told BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders. "We just think he's kind of epitomizes British energy really like in music. He was in a good place to try some different stuff and we connected and we said in the studio, like, what do you think?
  
  And then he just said, 'Listen, guys, I just want to write I just want to do something. The first time I play it out, no one needs to know the words. No one needs to know the song, but it will just go off.' And we said, 'oh, well, luckily, that's the sort of thing we're good at.' So we were on the same place."
• Building anticipation for a long time, Chase & Status unleashed "Backbone" on August 8, 2024. The track's journey to release began four months previously with a surprise performance at Coachella, igniting excitement among fans. The hype reached fever pitch when Stormzy made a surprise appearance at Chase & Status' Ushuaia Ibiza takeover in June, performing "Backbone" live. Capitalizing on the momentum, a music video was captured during their performance and released alongside the official track.
• "Backbone" debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart to become Chase & Status' first UK chart-topper. It was Stormzy's fourth visit to the UK summit, following "Vossi Bop" (2019), "Take Me Back To London" with Ed Sheeran (2019) and "Own It" with Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy (2020).