Songfacts®:

• Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics about his wife at the time, Bianca, who he affectionately called "Negrita." The title was sometimes misinterpreted as a racial slur.
• The Stones were experimenting with reggae music, which was an influence on this track. Ron Wood said of how it came together: "I had this particular lick that I took into the studio and the others said, What are we going to start with? and I said, I've got this song. Charlie was sitting behind his kit, so he was already into it and then Keith and Mick both got into the motion of it. That was Hey Negrita, which came together very easily. The key to getting a song across in this band is never to try and write all the words. If you've got the rhythm, you're lucky! Let Mick write the words and then you're in with a chance." >>>

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• When Ronnie Wood first stepped into the studio with The Rolling Stones, he didn't exactly tiptoe in. As he told Uncut magazine, "Hey Negrita" was the first track he grabbed hold of and declared, "Right, we're going to play this."
  
  Drummer Charlie Watts reportedly dry-quipped, "We've only known him five minutes and he's bossing us around already." Wood calls it his "classic introduction" to the band; kicking the door open rather than waiting to be invited in.
  
  Wood ended up with what he describes as an "inspiration by" credit. He hadn't written the lyrics, but much of the musical backbone was his. For Wood, it was proof that squeezing into the Stones' songwriting inner circle was possible, even if it meant coming in "the backdoor the hard way." In the years that followed, those tentative footholds turned into a more regular presence in the band's writing credits.