Songfacts®:

• This is a sensual track where an empowered Normani flirts with a love interest. She's had enough of talking and instructs the guy to show her his "wild side."
• Cardi B joins Normani to spit a raunchy verse about her lover. The rap queen doesn't hold back about what she expects to get up to between the sheets and even on the kitchen floor.
• Though this is the first time Normani and Cardi B have worked together on disc, the pair have interacted in the past. The former Fifth Harmony singer made a cameo in Cardi B's video for "WAP" alongside other singers and personalities like Rosalía and Kylie Jenner.
• Normani originally planned "Wild Side" as a solo track. She had already rehearsed for about three weeks preparing for the video when Cardi heard the seductive bop for the first time and agreed to contribute. "She really showed up for me and brought this record to life by simply doing what Cardi does best," said the R&B singer.
• Normani released "Wild Side" on July 16, 2021, marking her first new song since dropping her Megan Thee Stallion collaboration "Diamonds" in January 2020.
• Normani and Cardi B co-wrote the song with Starrah (Rihanna's "Needed Me," Maroon 5's "Girls Like You"), frequent Cardi collaborator Pardison Fontaine and Keynon Moore.
  
  Normani and Starrah also co-produced the track with June Nawakii, Taylor Ross, Dave Cappa, Tyler Rohn, and Jonah Christian.
• The song appears to sample the drums from Aaliyah's "One in a Million" single. However, the credits don't contain any reference to Aaliyah or writers and producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott, so it may have been just an interpolation or homage to the '90s R&B track.
• Tanu Muino directed the steamy video, which finds Normani showcasing sleek dance moves in a variety of settings. Sean Bankhead, who was responsible for the choreography in her 2019 "Motivation" single, choreographed her dance routines. By the time a naked Cardi arrives two thirds of the way through to perform her rap, Normani is wearing virtually nothing too. Muino, it should be noted, also directed Cardi's similarly NSFW video for "WAP."
• Normani finished her solo version of "Wild Side" in early 2021 during quarantine. While visiting the Zach Sang Show she said Cardi got involved much later after she'd heard a 15-second snippet of the song on the "Love Lies" singer's social media.
• Normani debuted the song on July 24, 2021 during Don Julio Tequila's Casa Primavera launch event in Malibu, California.
• Speaking with Cosmopolitan, Cardi shared how her stylist, Kollin Carter, was a factor in the "Wild Side" collab. "My stylist worked with her and he was always saying how she's such a nice person," she said. "My stylist was like, 'Would you do a song with Normani? She would love to do a song with you.'"
• Normani told co-lyric writer Starrah she was looking for something where she could slide around in her sensuality. "I went to [Starrah] and said, 'I want something really sexy,'" she recounted to Allure. "I just felt this sense of me coming into my own. I feel like a woman now."