American Boy

"American Boy" is the second single from the album Shine by British R&B singer Estelle and features American rapper Kanye West. The song is her first international single. The song won the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 51st Grammy Awards.

The song was listed at #238 on Pitchfork Media's Top 500 songs of the 2000s.

Background
Speaking in February 2008 to noted UK R&B writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning Blues & Soul, Estelle explained how the track came about: "We were just messing about in the studio, joking around. And John Legend just said to me 'Why don't you write a song about meeting an American boy?'. So I was like 'Well, that's pretty easy' - because I have a lot of male friends out there in New York. And I unwittingly ended up creating a new ladies' anthem! And Kanye basically just brought his own cheeky self to the track, his own sense of humour. At first he was like 'How can you rap over a dance beat?' - and now he's DONE it!"

Song information
Written by Kanye West, Keith Harris, Estelle, will.i.am, John Stephens, Caleb Speir, Josh Lopez, and Kweli Washington and produced by will.i.am, the song uses samples from "Impatient" from will.i.am's 2007 album Songs About Girls as well as "& Down" by Boys Noize. American Boy was released as the second single from Shine. It was released in the UK, as a download, on 21 March 2008 and physically on 24 March 2008.

After quickly dropping in Billboard rankings, on 9 September 2008, Shine reappeared for purchase in the iTunes U.S. store. As a result of accumulated demand during the period of unavailability, "American Boy" quickly re-entered the top 100 songs chart, which prompted the song to jump four spots on the Billboard Hot 100 from #57 to #53.

American Boy reached a spot in the top 6 of iTunes "Top Songs" by 13 September 2008. Those sales levels in iTunes added the 10,000 copies of Shine sold in the now-reversed album-only experiment. During that time, the Shine album still generated 5,000 sales per week through offline sales, the UK iTunes, and non iTunes digital music channels such as Amazon which agreed to continue album sales while abiding by the publisher's wish to block sales of the single. In addition, a cover version of the song, performed by "Studio All-Stars", shot up the charts while the original was unavailable as a single.

The song was nominated for Song of the Year and won in the category of Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. This song was #7 on Rolling Stone 's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2008. American Boy was the 33rd best selling single of 2008, selling 1,582,000 downloads.

Chart performance
"American Boy" is Estelle's biggest hit charting in 18 different official charts in the world. The single debuted at number 72 in UK Singles Chart. It then dropped out and re-entered at number 1 two weeks later, and stayed four weeks at the summit of the chart. "American Boy" remained in the UK Top 40 for 22 consecutive weeks and became the sixth biggest-selling single of 2008. The single has also charted on the Irish Singles Chart the same week where it entered at number eight on downloads and peaked at number two.

In the U.S, the song debuted at #98, her first appearance in Billboard Hot 100. The single rose to #9 on the chart and #8 on Hot Digital Songs. As previously mentioned above, the single and its parent album were then removed from the U.S iTunes store, prompting the single to plummet from #11 to #37 on the following week's Hot 100. The album and song were then added back to the iTunes store on 9 September 2008. After this, "American Boy" reached a new peak on the Hot 100 of #9, becoming Estelle's first U.S. top ten hit. Also, it debuted at #96 and peaked at #9 on the Canadian Hot 100. The song has sold over 1,500,000 downloads in the US.

The single debuted at number 7 in Australia and so far peaked number 3. "American Boy" is Estelle's highest charting single since "1980", which peaked number 36. In New Zealand the single first appeared on 1 April 2008 on New Zealand Chart debuting at number 25. After a couple of weeks, it cracked the top 5 of the chart peaking number 5. It was also her first appearance in New Zealand RIANZ Chart.

In addition, the song reached top 10 in more than 14 countries including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Brazil, Switzerland and Canada.

Covers and parodies
Sam Sparro performed an acoustic version of the song on the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge which was then released as a B-Side to his single 21st Century Life. Busta Rhymes also produced a remixed version of the song.

The American band VersaEmerge has covered the song on YouTube, as well as at their live shows. Another American band that has covered the song at their live shows is Fall Out Boy.

The song has been parodied internationally, with the eponymous character changed to be an:
 * "Arab friend" by Bago Dago.
 * "Australian Boy"
 * "Canadian Boy" by Suzie McNeil and Jay Michaels
 * "Cantonese Boy" by Only Won and Larissa Lam.
 * "Chinese Boy" by Dave Soul.
 * "Armenian Boy" by Hamish & Andy.
 * "Egyptian Boy" by EgyptianG.
 * "Somerset Boy" by Chris Moyles.
 * "Fake American Boy" by Peven Everett.
 * "Jamaican Boy" by Bost & Bim ft. Brisa Roché & Lone Ranger.
 * John McCain
 * "Hungarian Boy" by Ben & Tony.

In visual media

 * The song is heard on the hit TV show Ghost Whisperer in the season four episode "Save Our Souls".
 * It is in the film Obsessed starring Beyoncé Knowles.
 * In an episode of Strictly Come Dancing, the professionals danced to the song.
 * The song is played for American ice hockey player Jay Latulippe who plays for the Cardiff Devils.

Music video
The music video for "American Boy" features guest appearances by John Legend, Kardinal Offishall, Taz Arnold of Sa-Ra, Naledge and Double-O of Kidz in the Hall, Danger Mouse, Consequence, Hi-Tek, Ryan Leslie, T.I., Brandon Hines, and Terrence J of 106 & Park, LL Cool J, among others. It was directed by Syndrome. The music video was nominated for Best UK Video at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. BET placed it at #45 on the Notarized: Top 100 Videos of 2008 countdown, while spin-off channel BET J placed it at #10 on the year-end ''Last Call 2008! Top 50 Countdown''.

Track listings and formats

 * UK CD 1
 * 1) "American Boy" (clean radio edit)


 * UK CD 2
 * 1) "American Boy" (explicit album version)
 * 2) "Life to You"
 * 3) "American Boy" (video)


 * US PROMO
 * 1) "American Boy" (radio edit)
 * 2) "American Boy" (instrumental)


 * Remixes EP
 * 1) "American Boy" (TS7 Remix)
 * 2) "American Boy" (TS7 Remix Radio Edit)
 * 3) "American Boy" (Soul Seekerz Club Remix)
 * 4) "American Boy" (Soul Seekerz Dub Remix)
 * 5) "American Boy" (Soul Seekerz Radio Remix)
 * 6) "American Boy" (Benny Benassi Remix)
 * 7) "American Boy" (Chew Fu "New York to L.A" Fix)
 * 8) "American Boy" (DJ Dan Radio Dub)
 * 9) "American Boy" (Laidback Luke Radio Edit)