Songfacts®:

• The song's title is based on Travis Scott's use of weed. He is so heavily under the influence of the drug he feels like he's the "highest in the room." The hook's final line, "Hope I make it outta here," suggests La Flame is suffering from drug-induced paranoia.
• The first verse finds Scott discussing his love for his then-girlfriend, reality-TV star Kylie Jenner. According to TMZ, they called it quits in late summer 2019 (they were last seen together publicly on August 27).
• Kylie Jenner first teased the song in April 2019 as part of her Kybrows collection commercial. The following month, Scott performed a truncated version of "Highest In The Room" during his headlining set at Rolling Loud Miami. Then, on September 1, 2019, Scott elected to play a snippet of the record during a live show, which included a verse from Lil Baby. However, Lil Baby's contribution was left off the final version of the song.
• The track was produced by Swiss beatmaker OZ ("Sicko Mode") and German producer Nik D, who is part of OZ's team. The instrumentation is based around a tinkling guitar melody that was recorded by Nik D on an iPhone in February 2019.
  
  "I played the melody with my guitar, and I freestyled it for one minute," he explained to Complex. "I recorded it on my iPhone. It's very uncommon to do it like that."
• As Nik D said, it is uncommon to make a song using an iPhone, but it has been done before. One instance was The Internet's Steve Lacy, who produced the beat for Kendrick Lamar's track "PRIDE." using GarageBand on his iPhone.
• The blockbuster music video was co-directed by Scott with Dave Meyers. It opens with the rapper on top of a towering skyscraper in some futuristic city showing us that he's, quite literally, the "highest in the toom." We then see Scott walking the exposed metal framework of the building before battling cyborgs.
• "Highest in the Room" also became highest on the chart when it debuted at #1 on the Hot 100. It was Scott's second chart-topping solo hit, following "Sicko Mode."
• Travis Scott recorded a multilingual remix with Spanish singer Rosalia and Atlanta rapper Lil Baby. The new version is the opening track of Scott's Cactus Jack compilation project, Jackboys.
• Songwriters Olivier Bassil, Benjamin Lasnier and Lukas Benjamin Leth sued Scott and his collaborators, including Oz (Ozan Yildirim), Nik D (Nik Dejan Frascona) and Jimmy Cash (Jamie Lepr), claiming they lifted this song's guitar melody from their 2019 song "Cartier."
  
  The trio stated that they posted their song on a public discussion group for producers, and also emailed it directly to more than 100 producers, including Lepr, Frascona, and Yildrim, hoping to collaborate on a future release. However, when "Highest In The Room" was released later that year, Bassil, Lasnier and Leth "found the guitar melody of the song substantially similar to 'Cartier.'" They filed the suit in Federal Court in California on June 9, 2020, asking for damages in addition to their share of royalties.