Songfacts®:

• "That Girl" was the first single from Maxi Priest's album Man With The Fun in 1996. With help from the reggae singer Shaggy, who was riding high off the success of his hits "Oh Carolina" and "Boombastic," he sings about a girl who is irresistible, the kind who can make you hot when it's cold outside.
• In an interview with Songfacts, Maxi Priest explained how his collaboration with Shaggy came about: "I took Shaggy on the road with me prior to this song being created. I met Shaggy through his manager, Robert Livingston, whom I spent a lot of years with driving all over London selling records out of the back of a car. I had gotten a break while in America preparing for a world tour when Robert stepped to me and said he had this DJ that he thought would work well with me on stage rapping, and introduced me to Shaggy. We toured together for some time before he got his break with the song 'Oh Carolina.' So it was pretty much a no-brainer that we would do a song together, which was 'That Girl.'"
• "That Girl" samples "Green Onions" by Booker T. & the MG's, a popular instrumental from 1962. Speaking to Songfacts, Booker T. Jones credited the success of the song to its "apparent simplicity," adding: "'Green Onions' appears to be a simple song, but every time I play it I have to pay attention. I have to remember, and school myself on how the notes go, because it's just not as simple as it sounds."
• The video was directed by Hype Williams, who famously helped to popularize the fish-eye lens effect in the '90s with his visuals for the likes of Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott. The "That Girl" video sees Maxi Priest and Shaggy singing to a camera, interspersed with shots of a number of supermodels, including David Bowie's wife, Iman.
• Maxi Priest and Shaggy performed this song alongside cast members during the Baywatch episode "Heal the Bay," which aired in 1997.
• Man With The Fun was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in 1997, but lost to the Bob Marley tribute album Hall of Fame: A Tribute To Bob Marley's 50th Anniversary by Bunny Wailer of The Wailers. It was the second Maxi Priest album nominated for the award, following Fe Real in 1994.
• "That Girl" was the first of numerous collaborations between Maxi Priest and Shaggy. In 2019, both artists reunited across four songs on Maxi's album It All Comes Back To Love, including on the lead single "I'm Alright."