"Uncontrollable" is a song by British YouTuber and rapper

KSI Olajide Olayinka Williams "JJ" Olatunji (born 19 June 1993), better known by his online alias KSI, is an English influencer, professional boxer and musician. He is a co-founding member of YouTube group the Sidemen, the CEO of Misfits Boxing a ...

. The song features a guest appearance from British rapper Big Zuu. It was independently released for digital download and

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

on 2 February 2018 in the build up to KSI's impending amateur boxing match against British YouTuber Joe Weller. The song was used as KSI's

entrance music The use of music at sporting events is a practice that is thousands of years old, but has recently had a resurgence as a noted phenomenon. Some sports have specific traditions with respect to pieces of music played at particular intervals. Others ...

for the boxing match, held on 3 February 2018 at the

Copper Box Arena The Copper Box Arena is a multi-sport venue built for the 2012 Summer Olympics, located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, England. Previously known as the Handball Arena, it was renamed because, aside from Handball at the 2012 Summ ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, which KSI went on to win via

technical knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

in the third round. The

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

was released on 31 January 2018. The

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

video places the two rappers in the gritty underground scene of the boxing world.

Background

In August 2017, it was announced that KSI would fight against British YouTuber Joe Weller in an

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

match, dubbed KSI vs. Joe Weller, to be held on 3 February 2018 at the

, England. The pair held a

press conference A press conference, also called news conference or press briefing, is a media event in which notable individuals or organizations invite journalism, journalists to hear them speak and ask questions. Press conferences are often held by politicia ...

to promote the fight on 9 September 2017.

Release and promotion

On 31 January 2018, the song's title, featured artist, cover art and release date were revealed and the song was made available to

pre-order A pre-order is an order placed for an item that has not yet been released. The idea for pre-orders came because people found it hard to get popular items in stores because of their popularity. Companies then had the idea to allow customers to r ...

on digital download services and pre-save on

services. "Uncontrollable" was independently released for digital download and streaming on 2 February 2018. The day after its release, on 3 February 2018, "Uncontrollable" was used as KSI's

for his boxing match against Weller, which KSI went on to win via

in the third round. KSI and Big Zuu will perform "Uncontrollable" during The KSI Show on 17 July 2021.

Critical reception

Jon Powell of ''Respect'' called "Uncontrollable" a "hard-hitting cut". Nic Coaker of

GRM Daily GRM Daily (Grime & Rap Music Daily), formerly Grime Daily, is a British urban music outlet and entertainment platform. As the name suggests, the platform is an outlet for UK rap and its various genres, such as UK drill, afroswing, trap, and Br ...

commented, "Whilst KSI has been building up a following from

urban music Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary r ...

fans over the past few years with his efforts of a rapping career, bringing Big Zuu onto a track is definitely going to have some of the grime fans in favour of him."

Music video

The

for "Uncontrollable" was directed by Rvbberduck. It was released to KSI'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 two days before the release of the song on 31 January 2018. It has received over 30 million views. The video is shot in

and it places KSI and Big Zuu in the gritty underground scene of the boxing world. In the music video, KSI publicly reveals his body transformation for his boxing match against Weller for the first time. KSI alluded to this on 25 January 2018, tweeting, "January 31st is gonna be the day a lot of people will know this ain't no joke." Nic Coaker of GRM Daily called the music video "energetic".

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from Tidal. *

– songwriting, vocals * Big Zuu – songwriting, vocals * Zeeshan – production, songwriting * Charlie Cook – engineering

Charts

Release history

Notes

References

{{KSI 2018 songs 2018 singles KSI songs Songs written by KSI RBC Records singles BMG Rights Management singles