Songfacts®:

• This powerhouse anthem was released as the lead single from Jessie J's third album. It finds her linking up with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj. The song was made available on July 29, 2014 through Republic Records.
• The song was produced by Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ilya. The same trio also worked on Grande's hit single "Problem."
• The song can also be found on the deluxe edition of Grande's My Everything album.
• Jessie J said she is is elated about how the song came together, as she'd wanted to work with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj for a while. "Max Martin and I got the song and I was like, 'I have to record this'," she recalled.
  
  "I put my vocal down and then Ariana heard it and she was like, 'I wanna put a verse on it.' Then Nicki heard it and, I mean, I had tried to get Nicki on 'Do It Like A Dude'... I didn't know if she was really going to do it," she added. "And then they sent me a verse and I cried."
• Jessie J only met Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj after the song hit #1 on iTunes. She explained on the July 30, 2014 episode of Boston 103.3 AMP Radio's The TJ Show: "Sadly, it's very rare to actually ever meet someone that you record a song with, because usually when you want someone that's successful and great, they're very rarely available, so we actually meet for the first time in the morning."
  
  "I fly to LA in about two hours to shoot the video tomorrow so, we have yet to meet," she added. "So what a great to way to meet and be like 'Yo, wassup! Yeah we got a #1 song on iTunes!'"
• According to Jessie J, Max Martin's intention was to create a sort of girl band to perform the song as opposed to featuring girls.
• There are three verses on this song, which is one more than most pop songs. It works because Minaj takes the third verse, providing a different voice and raising the energy level right at the point where the listener is likely to start losing interest.
• Jessie explained the song to Radio.com as, "being a moment of empowering women and a song that gets you on your feet."
  
  "I started it first, then Ariana jumped on and then Nicki jumped on," she added. "It kind of became what it is right now: a moment, a party."
• Asked about the song's meaning by Spin magazine, Jessie J replied: "'Bang Bang' basically represents what it did back in the day when you were little. It was just a word that kind of is explosive. Like, 'BANG BANG! Pour me a beer!'"
  
  "It's like a Do It Like A Dude mentality," she added; "it doesn't really mean anything in particular. It's not violent. It's just a very in-your-face, catchy phrase. It's like 'Stomp stomp!' or 'Pow pow!' It's edgy and you can kinda take what you want from it."
• The song's music video was shot over two days in Los Angeles and directed by Hannah Lux Davis (Lil Wayne's "Love Me," Jason Derulo's "Marry Me"). Balancing three divas in one clip was no easy task for the director. "Politically, we had to make sure everybody had the proper amount of screen time and attention," Davis recalled to Billboard magazine.
• This was written for Ariana Grande, who hated her original recording, so Republic Records executive Wendy Goldstein got Jessie J and Nicki Minaj to record vocals instead. Goldstein recalled what happened next to Billboard magazine: "I was scared to send it to Ari. So I sent it to [Republic Records ­chairman/CEO] Monte Lipman and said, 'Play this for Ariana.' When she heard it, she was like, 'I want it back.'"
• Speaking to Glamour in 2021 about how the track came to be, Jessie J said Minaj's contribution happened after she heard the song in the studio and said, "'I've got to jump on this." Her team didn't need to ask her, she just wanted to do it.
  
  According to Minaj, that's not quite how it happened. Disputing Jessie's J's version of events, the rapper took to Twitter to give her side of the story.
  
  "Babe, Jessie J I didn't hear the song and ask to get on it," she wrote. "The label asked me to get on it and paid me. How would I have heard the song? Chiiille what am I the damn song monitor? Snoopin around for songs chile?"
  
  Jessie responded with an apology for getting the song's origin story wrong, saying, "I was told you heard the song and wanted to be on it by someone clearly gassing me up at the label."
  
  For those of you not up with urban slang, "Chile," meaning "child," is a word that's been used in the black community for years. Nicki Minaj popularized the term among her fanbase.