F.U.B.U.

Album: A Seat at the Table (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • Solange titled this black-empowerment anthem after FUBU, an American apparel company that has strong ties to the hip hop community. She explained on her website:

    "I named it 'F.U.B.U.' because I wanted to empower, and I looked to people who have done that in their own ways. I thought of F.U.B.U. the brand, meaning 'For Us By Us', and what kind of power it had and how normalized it became to wear that kind of symbolism every day.

    I remember reading stories on the product placement, and seeing LL Cool J wearing a F.U.B.U. hat in a national GAP advertisement. F.U.B.U. exhibited Blackness in any space, on a huge global level, and that is what I wanted to do with the song."

    F.U.B.U. was founded in 1992 by Daymond John, J. Alexander Martin, Keith Perrin and Carlton Brown. At its peak in 1998, FUBU grossed over $350 million in annual worldwide sales.
  • Solange bought in The-Dream and BJ the Chicago Kid to serve some accented vocals for the track. The-Dream told Billboard magazine how he had to reassure the songstress about the album:

    "She came here to Atlanta to finish what she had done, and played me her stuff. And she wasn't super sure about everything that she was doing. I definitely assured her that it was awesome as f--k, like, 'You need to drop this sh-t. This sh-t is awesome. I don't know what you're talking about. Just put it out. Don't think about it.'"
  • The-Dream explained his contribution to this song: "For that track, I just put myself in Dream artist mode. 'Fancy' is one of her favorite records. She loves it to death. When she asked me to be on 'F.U.B.U.,' I was like, 'Of course!' It didn't take long. And I did backgrounds on the song with Wayne, 'Mad.' And that was a wrap."

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