Songfacts®:

• This is American Rapper J.Cole's first official single from his debut studio album, Cole World: The Sideline Story. The song was dropped on June 15, 2011, the second anniversary of Cole's breakthrough mixtape The Warm Up. Its release had been delayed due to difficulties arising from getting the clearance of its sample of Kanye West's "New Workout Plan" by that original track's five writers/publishers.
  
  The song also borrows from "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, whose clearance was more, er, straight up.
• The video was directed by Jake Davis and finds the rapper spitting game from the sidelines to a house party. The visual was originally shot in Los Angeles, but after an edit leaked without Cole's consent in July 2011, some scenes were re-shot in Brooklyn, New York.
• The song was aimed at the clubs which upset some of Cole's more hardcore hip-hop fans. He defended the tune in an interview with The Boombox: "I'm just going to be me. That's it. Of course I want to be commercially successful. That's not the label making me feel like that, that's what I want to do. I don't want to have music that goes under the radar for the rest of my life. I want to win at all levels of this career. I'm not afraid of success. Back in the days, I was worried about what becoming a star meant. I was afraid of becoming successful too fast. Now I want my music to be heard by everyone. I think 'Work Out' is a summertime, feel good record. It sounds like some [old school] West Coast, that Roger Troutman [voice box] feel. It just feels good. But I also want to show that I'm still that artist lyrically."
• Cole was crushed when he found out via producer No I.D. that one of his idols, Nas, didn't like the song. He recounts his disappointment on the Born Sinner track "Let Nas Down" when he addresses the Queens emcee. "You made 'You Owe Me,' dog, I thought you could relate," he spits.