"Hi" is a song by Scottish alternative rock band

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

featuring American hip hop group

Wu-Tang Clan Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop collective formed in Staten Island, New York City, in 1992. Its members include RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and, until his death in 2004, O ...

, released as the lead single from their tenth studio album of the same name (2021). The track was written by Eddie Campbell, Robert Hodgens, Sharleen Spiteri, Johnny McElhone, Jack McElhone, Robert Diggs, and Dennis Cole and was produced by John McElhone and Angelica Bjornsson. The single was released in December 2020 through BMG.

Background and recording

"Hi" is the second collaboration between Texas and Wu-Tang Clan, after both previously collaborated in 1998 with a re-worked version of Texas' 1997 hit single " Say What You Want" re-titled as "Say What You Want (All Day, Every Day)". The 1998 release proved to be a commercial success, reach the top ten in the United Kingdom, Iceland, Scotland, Belgium and New Zealand. The success of the single lead to a performance from both Texas and Wu-Tang Clan at the

1998 BRIT Awards Brit Awards 1998 was the 18th edition of the Brit Awards, an annual pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, a ...

. Although the song is titled "Hi" as in someone saying hello to another, Spiteri claims the song is actually about "getting high on love". The release of the song marked the first new material from Wu-Tang Clan since 2017's ''The Saga Continues''. Originally, Spiteri had passed the track to

RZA Robert Fitzgerald Diggs (born July 5, 1969), better known by his stage name RZA ( ) or the RZA, is an American rapper, record producer, composer, actor, and filmmaker. He is the '' de facto'' leader of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, having pro ...

from Wu-Tang Clan to mix and finalise the recording, however, after hearing the track, RZA was keen for Wu-Tang Clan to become involved, leading to an official collaboration.

Promotion and release

"Hi" received its first radio airplay by Zoe Ball on her

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

breakfast show.

Commercial performance

The song appeared on the Wallonia

Ultratip Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium. Ultratop is a non-profit organization, created in 1995 on the initiative of the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA), the Belgian member organiza ...

chart in Belgium, where it charted at number 50 on 23 January 2021.

Music video

The official music video premiered on the band's

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel on 1 December 2020, the same day the single was officially released. The video begins with the 1998 BRIT Awards performance between Texas and Wu-Tang Clan performing "Say What You Want (All Day, Every Day)". The video then cuts to the present day, where actor Kadeem Ramsay is seen driving an old

Volvo The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...

car down a country road. The music video features very little of Spiteri and RZA and Wu-Tang Clan, with Spiteri making only an appearance towards the end of the video where it is revealed that Ramsay's character has kidnapped her, later she is sitting on top of the Volvo 740 at dusk, with Ramsay standing beside her, the pair sharing a joint. RZA makes an appearance at the end of the video through a video call.

Charts

References

{{Texas (band) 2020 singles 2020 songs Songs written by Johnny McElhone Songs written by Sharleen Spiteri Texas (band) songs Wu-Tang Clan songs