Songfacts®:

• This song about female empowerment and failed relationships features Lil Kim and Missy Elliott; the latter also produced the track. Cole explained to MTV News that all it needed was one phone call to Missy Elliott to get her on board: "I wanted her to be one of the producers on the album, so I just called her and she came through."
• This song was originally intended for Fantasia's debut album but after Missy Elliott played it to Cole she decided she wanted it. Elliott explained to Vibe magazine: "I tried to hurry up past it cause I felt Keyshia wouldn't want it. She said she wanted to work with me and I really didn't know what kind of direction she wanted to go in. But as soon as the chords came on she was like, 'Wait-wait-wait stop! Stop!' She was like all, who record is that? I was like, well [Fantasia] had too many records on her album so I couldn't take it. And she wanted it." Cole added: "Fantasia did this track before I did it. It didn't go on her album but I thought it was real hot. So when we were all in New York, I recorded it."
• This features a sample of the 1983 #1 R&B hit "Juicy Fruit" by the funk/soul group Mtume. Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 debut solo single "Juicy" borrowed from the same track. Cole told MTV News: "We hooked it up. As soon as I heard ['Let It Go'], I was like, 'That one, I want that one right there.' And it's hot. It's Biggie's remake to ['Juicy'], so I had to do it."
• It was Elliott who decided to add Lil Kim to the track. She told MTV News: "When I first did the beat, like, I immediately thought of Kim. 'Cause you immediately think of Big. For people like me from the old school, actually, I immediately think of Mtume, the first people who did it. But you think of Big, and then you think of Kim. And I thought, '[There] hasn't been a record with females all on one thing in a long time, since, like, 'Ladies Night' [the common name of the remix to Lil' Kim's "Not Tonight"].' So when you think of that, it's like, 'OK, let's make it official and put Kim on there.' And [Keyshia and I] both was with it; it sounded like a hot idea. And Kim came through and laced it."