Up Out My Face by Mariah Carey

Album: Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel (2009)

Charted: 100

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Songfacts®:

This song is a caustic dismissal to a former lover with the send-off, "When I break, I break, boy."
In a similar fashion to the hit single "Obsessed" many listeners have queried whether in this song with lyrics like, "I know you're not a rapper, so you better stop spittin' it," Carey is sending a message to Eminem. In a Los Angeles radio interview, the singer refused to even mention the rapper's name but hinted that Eminem is wrong to poke fun at her and husband Nick Cannon on tracks such "Bagpipes From Baghdad."

Carey told DJ Ryan Seacrest, "Eight years ago, maybe I knew that person, kind of, in a very platonic way and yet they're still using my name in songs in order to boost their career, which I don't think is working. It's just obsession... Anybody who would write a song about somebody and try to say nasty, disgusting things about them eight years later, when they're married, I'm like, I don't think so." Carey added that the media should stop reading too much into her new songs - they're not all about Eminem. She said: "If I write a song, called Why Are You So Upset With Me, and people are seeing that person in the song, that's not my problem."
This is featured on Carey's 12th studio album, Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel, but was also slated for an ultimately shelved remix album, Angels Advocate. Carey released a remix version of the song with Nicki Minaj, which eked into the Hot 100 at #100. The pair also filmed a music video, directed by Nick Cannon, that has them playing Barbies that bust free from their boxes. Minaj spoke with MTV about the concept, which tied in with her "Black Barbie" persona.

"I think it was dope," she said. "A lot of times, more famous artists or more confident artists take from a younger artist but they'll never include you in that. I feel like she liked the whole doll thing and she wanted to do it with me. But she said that: She said, 'Everybody's gonna say 'she's doing Nicki.' But I told her, she's always had a doll persona, like all that 'doll baby' [stuff]. So it goes perfect with Barbie and we had fun. That's all that matters."

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