Jam (Turn It Up)

Album: single release only (2011)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single to be released by American Celebutante Kim Kardashian. She recruited an A-List team to help her with the track, enlisting consummate R&B songwriter The-Dream to pen the bass-heavy dance tune and famed director Hype Williams to helm the video. A chap called Kanye West also makes a cameo appearance in the clip.
  • Kardashian said on MTV talk show The Seven that she intended this to be the only record she will make. She explained that she was nudged into recording the track by some of her music biz pals." Basically, Ciara came to me and was like, 'You've got to meet The-Dream,'" Kim said. "I was not into doing a song. I thought, 'Everyone kind of tries that, and it doesn't really work out so well.' So I talked to friends like Kanye and a few of my other musical friends, like this is their life. They gave me good advice. They asked me what I do for fun, and I said, 'I go shopping, I hang out with friends.' And they said, 'We go to the studio for fun. Come have fun with us. Don't think too much about it.'"
  • Half of the song's proceeds are donated to a cancer foundation. Kardashian explained this is, "because The-Dream's and one of my parents passed away from cancer. It's just all having fun - with a good cause."
  • Kardashian told MTV News about the song's music video: "Hype Williams directed the video. It is so crazy," she said. "I mean his looks that he put me in [are crazy]. He really had say in what he wanted, I guess, [for what] Kim 'the artist' that I was playing in this role would look like, as opposed to the everyday glam Kim that you're used to seeing. So, it was really fun to play dress up and have all these other looks that I never really tried before."
  • Ironically (or maybe intentionally), the song shares the same title as a 2006 dance chart-topping single by Kardashian's friend and fellow socialite Paris Hilton.
  • The Entertainment Weekly critics preferred to turn this down. They voted this as their worst single of 2011!

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Emilio Castillo from Tower of Power

Emilio Castillo from Tower of PowerSongwriter Interviews

Emilio talks about what it's like to write and perform with the Tower of Power horns, and why every struggling band should have a friend like Huey Lewis.

Lou Gramm - "Waiting For A Girl Like You"

Lou Gramm - "Waiting For A Girl Like You"They're Playing My Song

Gramm co-wrote this gorgeous ballad and delivered an inspired vocal, but the song was the beginning of the end of his time with Foreigner.

Janis Ian: Married in London, but not in New York

Janis Ian: Married in London, but not in New YorkSong Writing

Can you be married in one country but not another? Only if you're part of a gay couple. One of the first famous singers to come out as a lesbian, Janis wrote a song about it.

Steely Dan

Steely DanFact or Fiction

Did they really trade their guitarist to The Doobie Brothers? Are they named after something naughty? And what's up with the band name?

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New Words

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New WordsSong Writing

Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.

Matthew Wilder - "Break My Stride"

Matthew Wilder - "Break My Stride"They're Playing My Song

Wilder's hit "Break My Stride" had an unlikely inspiration: a famous record mogul who rejected it.