Run Up

Album: Music Is the Weapon (2017)
Charted: 20 66
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Over a dancehall-inspired rhythm, PartyNextDoor delivers sexual bars about that how he will run up on a certain girl because of her intoxicating love:

    You ain't gotta wait for it
    You ain't gotta wait for me to give you my love
    You ain't gotta wait for it
    Things are gettin' sticky, girl I think that I'm stuck


    Nicki Minaj comes in later and spits the third verse in a Caribbean flow in which she brings designer clothes and reveals that she's about to "drop an album."
  • Major Lazer's Diplo explained the background to the two guest vocalists contributions:

    "Partynextdoor is a good friend of ours. We're always working in LA when he is around and we've cut a lot of music and we really believe in what he does and his style. He came up with a great song. I've always wanted to work with Nicki as well, she's on our short list. Of course this record… she just vibed with it, she loved the feeling and timing was right so we got her on it."
  • Diplo told Billboard magazine how PartyNextDoor's hook triggered the song:

    "We're always working on music, we probably have between 30, 40 songs at any moment, just building ideas. This one, PartyNextDoor had the chorus and we had the song - a demo of it - and we decided to try something different with the production. I think once we did this kind of futuristic, afrobeat, dance house kind of production, Nicki Minaj was really interested in that. She's always someone to jump on new and cool beats and styles, so once we had the production, she was into it. Then after that, it was pretty easy to get everything else done."
  • Nicki Minaj wrote 16 different verses for the song. Diplo said:

    "[Nicki] seems like so untouchable to me, like she seems so far away and untouchable. But when you get in reach of her, she's so down to earth. It's really cool to finally meet an artist like that who really understands how to perfect a verse. Because I have so many songs now, like four or five a week, and go through them real quick. And she takes her time on the record - I like that vibe too. Artists like her or Madonna, some of the people I've worked with, are perfectionists and I can appreciate that a lot more when some hip-hop artists just run through songs so quickly. It's cool to take some time to finish a song.

    I was happy with the first [verse]. [Laughs] I was definitely like, 'Ooh, I'm good,' but she was like, 'Nah, let me try again, let me try again,' and it kept going until the last time when I was like, 'Yo, we're mixing this tomorrow.' I was like, 'You can't write any more, I gotta mix this, we gotta release this now. This is it.' But the final one's perfect. She's so good with her timing and style and adding an extra bar or whatever. She's the master."
  • The video was helmed by the director trio of Paul, Luc and Martin, the creative collective of Belgian star Stromae under his Mosaert label. The clip features a party where nobody can put their phones down.

    "The idea was to laugh at ourselves and at the unconditional love we bear to our smartphones," said Paul, Luc and Martin of the video. "Humor and absurdity came naturally in our speech because our will was not to accuse someone or something but just exaggerate it to foster reflection."

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