"I Need a Dollar" is a song performed by American singer

Aloe Blacc Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III (born January 7, 1979), known professionally as Aloe Blacc (), is an American singer and rapper. He is known for his guest performance on Avicii's 2013 single "Wake Me Up (Avicii song), Wake Me Up", which peaked on ...

, written by Blacc, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon and Jeff Dynamite. It is the intro song for the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

show '' How to Make It in America'', and was featured as the iTunes Single of the Week. It also featured in the game '' Fight Night Champion''. Blacc has performed the song live on '' Later... with Jools Holland'', ''

The Graham Norton Show ''The Graham Norton Show'' is a British comedy chat show presented by Graham Norton. It was initially broadcast on BBC Two, from 22 February 2007, before moving to BBC One in October 2009. It currently airs on Friday evenings, with Norton ...

'', ''

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show was the third installment of the '' Late Night'' franchise. Hosted by Jimmy Fallon,

'', and '' Conan''. In April 2011, it was featured in a commercial for

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wireless services.

Music video

The standard version of the song has two music videos. The first, released in 2010, was filmed in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, and features the screen being split in half. The right side shows Blacc singing inside an apartment while the left side shows a man walking through the streets of New York. Once Aloe enters the left side after the line "Maybe it's inside the bottle" and performs at a bar, the song changes to "Life So Hard". The second, released in 2011, was filmed in and around

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

and was directed by Derek Pike. The video shows Blacc walking alone along a highway in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

, and then hitching a ride to Las Vegas, where he finds a dollar coin on the casino floor, uses it to play a slot machine, and wins.

Formats and track listings

;UK digital single #"I Need a Dollar" – 4:05 #"I Need a Dollar" (Radio Mix) – 3:22 #"I Need a Dollar" (

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Remix) – 5:48 #"I Need a Dollar" (Blue Fear Trance Remix) – 10:49 ;German digital single #"I Need a Dollar" – 4:02 #"I Need a Dollar" (

Tensnake Marco Niemerski, known professionally as Tensnake (born 1975), is a German DJ and producer from Hamburg best known for his 2010 track " Coma Cat", which appeared on at least 15 compilations that year. "Coma Cat" reached number 85 on the UK Sing ...

Remix) – 6:45 #"I Need a Dollar" (M.Arfmann & Chassy Wezar RMX) – 3:27

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Samples and covers

Various hip-hop artists have sampled "I Need a Dollar" or freestyled over the instrumental, including Yelawolf,

T.I. Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. (born September 25, 1980), known professionally as T.I. or Tip, is an American rapper and singer raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Harris is credited as a pioneer of the hip hop subgenre trap music, along with fellow Georgi ...

, Wax, Dumbfoundead,

Chris Webby Christian Talcott Webster (born October 13, 1988), better known by his stage name Chris Webby, is an American rapper. Webster has released many mixtapes such as the DJ Drama-hosted ''Bars On Me'' (2012) and his EP ''There Goes the Neighborhoo ...

, MGK, and

Mac Miller Malcolm James McCormick (January 19, 1992 – September 7, 2018), known by the stage name Mac Miller, was an American rapper. He began his career in Pittsburgh's local hip hop music, hip hop scene in 2007, at the age of 15. In 2010, he signed ...

, and Sammy Adams. Australian artist Xavier Rudd covered "I Need a Dollar" on '

Like a Version ''Like a Version'' is a long-running weekly segment on Australian youth radio station Triple J. It involves musicians playing two songs live in the Triple J studio, one of their own songs and then a cover version. The series was created by pres ...

', a segment on the Australian radio station '

Triple J Triple J is an Australian government-funded national radio station founded in 1975 as a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It aims to appeal to young listeners of alternative music, and plays far more Australian conten ...

' British artists Ed Solo and Deekline together remixed "I Need A Dollar" and released it as a single with the same name.

References

External links

* * {{authority control 2010 songs 2010 singles Aloe Blacc songs Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders) number-one singles Number-one singles in Israel Songs about poverty Songs written by Aloe Blacc Sony Music UK singles Songs written by Nick Movshon