That's What I Like

Album: 24K Magic (2016)
Charted: 12 1
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Bruno Mars is telling a woman all the things that he likes.

    Gold jewelry shining so bright
    Strawberry champagne on ice
    Lucky for you, that's what I like, that's what I like


    The things that Mars likes just happen to be luxury items that will impress a girl.
  • The song was co-written by:

    Bruno Mars, Phillip Lawrence and Christopher Brody Brown under their alias of Shampoo Press & Curl. The production trio are a reformed version of The Smeezingtons, who were responsible for most of Mars' first two albums. 24 K Magic was produced its entirety by Shampoo Press & Curl, who also served as the executive producers.

    Frequent Justin Timberlake collaborator James Fauntleroy. Among his co-writing credits for the former 'N Sync star is "Pusher Love Girl," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.

    Johnathan Yip, Ray Romulus, Jeremy Reeves and Ray McCullough II, who comprise the production quartet The Stereotypes. Their other credits include Justin Bieber's "Somebody To Love" and Bruno Mars' "24K Magic."
  • Mars performed this song at the Grammy Awards in 2017. Later in the show, he took part in a tribute to Prince, who died the previous year.
  • Bruno Mars was the big winner at the 2017 American Music Awards, taking home seven trophies in total, including Soul/R&B, Favorite Song and Video of the Year for this number. Mars also won Artist of the Year, Favorite Male Artist – Pop/Rock, Favorite Album – Pop/Rock (24K Magic), Favorite Male Artist – Soul/R&B, Favorite Album – Soul/R&B (24K Magic).
  • The Stereotypes' Ray Romulus recalled the song's writing session to ABC Radio. He said that Bruno Mars "had the full idea, and he just portrayed how he wanted things to move... it was a full collaborative effort and it was basically like a party."

    Romulus added that Mars shared his musical ideas, not by singing, but by dancing. "When he was in the studio, he was literally dancing for us and showing us, like, 'I can't move like that to this chord or to this drum... change it,'" he explained. "Boom, we changed it and he's like, 'There it is!'"
  • Jonathan Yip of The Stereotypes recalled the making of the track. "He [Mars] had a bunch of it, like a skeleton of it already laid out, and he was like, 'We need to make this bounce,'" he remembered to Billboard. "We would just go back and forth and we were messing around with rhythms, and next thing we know, it's hitting, it's bouncing - half-time, double-time. He kept saying, 'It needs to make me bounce, it needs to make me move a certain way.' And he would move, and be like that's it. This is it. He'd be like, 'I don't want it to make me move another way.'"
  • This won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2018, beating out the weightier nominees "1-800-273-8255" and "4:44." It came as a surprise after Sting introduced the category by describing the songwriters as "managing to convey the spirit of these challenging times while inspiring all of us to transcend them."

    "That's What I Like" also won for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance. Mars took Best R&B Album with 24K Magic and Record of the Year with "the title track."

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