Songfacts®:

• "Check It Out" was released as the third single from Pink Friday, the debut studio album by Nicki Minaj. The song features Black Eyed Peas leader will.i.am., who also produced the track. Minaj was doing loads of collaborations around this time, hooking up with Eminem ("Roman's Revenge"), Kanye West ("Dark Fantasy") and Rihanna ("Fly"). It had been a minute since a female rapper came on the scene and made much impact, but once Nicki showed up, she was everywhere.
• The song samples the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star," which was a big hit in England in 1979, but pretty much unknown in America until its music video became the first clip to be aired by MTV on August 1, 1981. The fledgling cable channel continued to play the video as at the time there weren't too many to choose from. The ensuing publicity prompted American radio programmers to, er, check it out, include the song on their playlists and make it a hit stateside. Many years later, you can make the case that Internet Killed the Video Star.
• Minaj commented on her collaboration with will.I.am to MTV News, stating, "I worked with tons of producers on my album, shout out to all of them. Will's the only producer that produced me. He really sat there and got this weird sound, and I was like, 'What?' It was so simple. He was sitting there and he made the beat on the spot." She added: "I was sitting there, and it was like five minutes later, he finished the beat!"
• Minaj and will.I.am performed the number for the first time on the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards pre-show. The rapper/producer not only had a black top, pants and sneakers, he was also in Black face. This provoked a reaction with some comparing will.I.am's makeup to the racist 19th century blackface minstrel shows.
• Both Minaj and will.I.am starred in the song's music video. The concept is based on the highly stylized Japanese animation style anime. Minaj told MTV News: "We're doing almost like an ode to Japanese culture and Japanese anime. I'm obviously a big fan and I've joined forces with like the only boy that I know that's also able to capture that culture."
• The UK version features a verse by Cheryl Cole making it the third time the X-Factor judge and will.i.am have both featured on a UK hit, following his "Heartbreaker" and her "3 Words."
• Minaj explained in the MTV News documentary My Time Now that the words for her raps come her organically. "When I write a rap, like, my brain doesn't compute, 'Now write rap.' It doesn't. You just have to let it happen and just don't second-guess yourself too much and then it gets done," she said. "To me, music is spiritual, so it moves you in a weird way that you cannot teach in school. I'll hear a beat and words just start coming to me."
• Pink Friday debuted at #2 on the Billboard album chart, selling 375,000 copies in its first week - the best sales week for a female MC in the 21st century. The only long player by a female hip-hop act to previously better this was Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which sold 423,000 in its first week back in 1998.