R&B/Pop songstress Normani scored another Top 20 hit with “Wild Side” featuring Cardi B. The collaboration peaked at #14 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart.
“Wild Side” is an Aaliyah-inspired track where Normani sings about wanting a lover to take her for a ride. Then Cardi B’s verse gets even more explicit as the Bronx rapper shares that she can “suck a watermelon through a straw.”
Apple Music’s Ebro Darden spoke to Normani about her latest single. The Atlanta-born vocalist was asked about playing “Wild Side” for her father Derrick Hamilton.
“You have no idea. I was so terrified to play this song for my dad. Terrified. Oh my goodness, avoiding it,” Normani told Ebro Darden. “He kept asking to hear the record because everyone else heard it but he didn’t hear it. And my dad is my biggest fan.”
Normani continued, “He works nightshifts. He hustles for his family and so to get through the night sometimes he listens to all my records and he was dying to listen to this one. I was just like, ‘Dad, um… I’ll play it for you later.’ Eventually, my mom ended up playing it for him and he was like, ’That s### is hard.’ He’s like, ‘That s### is fire.’ He tells me all the time, every single day, I kid you not, he’s like, ‘Are you ready to take over the world? He loves the song.”
.@Normani joins @oldmanebro to chat about her latest single #WildSide ft. @iamcardib, and finding her voice as a solo artist.
— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) August 3, 2021
Listen: https://t.co/SeK0ZJOlOp pic.twitter.com/5sglmQA30F
According to Cardi B, it was Normani’s representatives that requested that the Invasion of Privacy creator make her bars sexual. Cardi tweeted, “Sooo like I did a verse and Normani team said they wanted nastier, sooo I was like alright… your wish is my command.”
“Wild Side” also caught a lot of people’s attention because of its Tanu Muino-directed, Sean Bankhead-choreographed music video as well as its “One In A Million” interpolation. Barry Hankerson, the uncle of the late Aaliyah, addressed the comparisons between “Wild Side” and “One In A Million.”
“I will not stand in the way of something that brings to light the incredible staying power of Aaliyah. So in that light, wishing Normani well with the song and overall career. God bless. I think Aaliyah would be pleased,” said Blackground Records founder Barry Hankerson.