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"American Oxygen" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna. It was written by Alex da Kid, Candice Pillay, Sam Harris and Rihanna; Alex da Kid and Kanye West produced it. Written over the course of a year, "American Oxygen" was inspired by the 1984 single "Born in the U.S.A." performed by Bruce Springsteen. It was made available for streaming on Tidal on April 5, 2015, and was released for a digital download on April 14 via the iTunes Store. The song is a dubstep-influenced ballad with patriotic lyrical content about a new America and the chasing of the American dream.
"American Oxygen" was raved by music critics whom praised the maturity of the lyrical content. Darren Craig, Jonathan Craven and Jeff Nicholas of Uprising Creative directed the music video for "American Oxygen", which premiered exclusively on Tidal on April 6. It depicts numerous moments from American history while Rihanna sings in front of a large American flag. Critics noted the patriotic feeling of the video, comparing it to Billy Joel's music video for his 1989 single "We Didn't Start the Fire". Rihanna performed "American Oxygen" for the first time at the Final Four of the 2015 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament in Indianapolis.
"American Oxygen" was written by Alex da Kid, Sam Harris, Candice Pillay and Rihanna. The production was done by Alex da Kid and the American rapper Kanye West. The writing of the song began in 2014, and it continued over a course of one year. Originally, Alex da Kid sent the beats of the song to Harris who started writing some lyrics. In an interview with Billboard, Harris noted how "American Oxygen" really stuck with him and he started the chorus with a couple lines he wrote: "We worked on just that chorus for like three or four months, going back and forth, back and forth…. It goes to show you that sometimes these songs just appear out of nowhere and sometimes you just have to go at it like a block of marble and you're chipping away at it."Harris explained how he and Alex da Kid wanted the chorus of the song to say a lot, even with a very small amount of lyrics in it. When they got the final chorus, the producer started to look for potential performers of the song.
When the song came across Rihanna, she and Alex da Kid began to adjust the song. The singer and the producer co-wrote the verses together with Harris, "I wrote one thing and then Alex and Rihanna had the idea to turn it into this song about an immigrant story, coming to this country as an outsider… That was her idea, really, hers and Alex's, to turn it into that kind of song." Harris stated that the inspiration for starting to write "American Oxygen" was the 1984 single "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen. According to Harris, "He gets that there's pride to living here in this country. This country is great and has the potential to be something really, really incredible, but there are a lot of problems that we don't acknowledge and it's important to shed light on both those things. And if you can do that in a song, that's the best." He also told the publication that they have their own version of "American Oxygen" too, however, according to him it means much more to be sang by Rihanna because she is a black female immigrant in the United States, "That is so powerful for a young kid to see her singing that song, it gets me choked up just thinking about it. It really was made so much more powerful by what she contributed to the songwriting and the performance of the song. I idolize her, and to have been given the opportunity to work with her is amazing."
"American Oxygen" was first featured on commercials which promoted the 2015 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Later, the song was made available for streaming on April 5, 2015, via Tidal, a service co-owned by Rihanna together with other music artists including, Jay Z, Beyoncé and Madonna. On April 14, "American Oxygen" was made available for digital download worldwide via the iTunes Store.
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