Songfacts®:

• This darkly comic song by American band The Gregory Brothers features the actual words of one Antoine Dodson. The Huntsville, Alabama native is sampled talking to a news reporter about the attempted rape of his sister, Kelly Dodson. Drummer and vocalist Michael Gregory told Wired Magazine, "For this one, I really wanted to listen to the contours of [Antoine Dodson's] voice, and the way that he was emoting. I've done this enough so that when I heard him talk, I could hear the melody, and that melody kind of changes connotation depending on what key I put it in. Then I do the instrumental track and put it on top."
• The Gregory Brothers are a musical group who are best known for their creation of the Auto-Tune the News viral video series on YouTube in which they perform alongside TV news clips altered with the Auto-Tune effect. This song was posted as Episode 12b, and it spread virally much faster than any previous episode, ultimately becoming their first song to reach the Hot 100.
• Michael Gregory admitted in Billboard magazine that he originally questioned the appropriateness of turning an attempted rape into a musical parody before concluding, "it's taking a terrible situation and making at least something positive out of it." Furthermore as Antoine and Kelly Dodson are listed as co-writers of the song, they are receiving 50% of the track's revenue.
• Keyboardist Evan Gregory discussed the song's success: "Why I think people are latching onto it is frankly quite similar to why they latch onto a classic ballad or pop song that tops the charts - because there's real emotion behind it that people identify with, even if, in this case, it was for unusual reasons. Although this is an unusual path to take to reach the Billboard Hot 100, it is a path nonetheless. We're thrilled."
• Michael Gregory told Errin Haines of The Associated Press why he believed the song has proved so popular: "It showed Antoine in a position of strength and courage. The message he had ... was one of righteous anger. That's what really ended up coming through in the song. People kind of connected to that."
• This was dubbed the most watched video in the US and around the world in 2010.