Songfacts®:

• This features Fergie. It was originally intended to be a track on the Black Eye Peas vocalist's next solo album, but after the song's producer Polow Da Don played it to Nelly he snapped it up. Fergie explained to MTV News what happened: "'Party People' started as a song that Polow Da Don and I did back when I did 'London Bridge' and 'Glamorous.' Basically, it was almost done. Trina did a verse on it; that's why you hear me say her name on the song. Everyone thought it was too street for me at the time. [Laughs.] So that's why they didn't want to put it on The Dutchess. It was left off, and I was gonna put it on my next album. Polow played it in the studio for Nelly, and he flipped out and turned the song around and made it into a major club banger, brought his energy, and it just became this monster. He played it for me. I told Polow, 'You know I was saving this song for my next album. But I can't hate on it, because it's good! I like it! I like this version.' And all the label heads loved this version. And Nelly called me like, 'It's crazy!'"
• Nelly told MTV News that he and Polow had already recorded 10 songs for the album when the producer played him the music for "Party People." The St Louis rapper thought "I'll take it." He added: "I kind of reconstructed it a little bit, put some Nelly in it, rearranged it some more, and it came out to be the song you hear today."
• Nelly immediately knew that this would be a single release. He told MTV News: "As soon as I heard it, I knew it was Nelly. It had everything that I really wanted. The beat is infectious. The feel of it is right where it needs to be - right what I want to do as far as killing it over the summer. It was perfect."