Pass Out

Album: The Disc-Overy (2010)
Charted: 1
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the debut single from London MC Tinie Tempah. He explained to The Sun January 29, 2010 that the song, "is about getting so out of it that you pass out." He added: "It was literally just supposed to be a 'track on the album' influenced by all the wild and exciting times I've had. But people warmed to it."
  • It is thought this hardcore British rap track is the first UK chart topper to use the 'c' word.
  • Tempah wrote this hip-hop track with producer Labyrinth, and the duo gave it an unexpected drum and bass ending. Tempah explained why to MTV News: "We tried out so many different things by going in the studio and having fun. It wasn't like we just put a drum & bass ending on it and then thought, done! We tried out so many things, guitars, reggae bass; we were having so much fun. That track at least took 24 full hours to put together. Me and Labyrinth both tired, with Red Bulls in hand, were like this track is sick. Labyrinth had two of his stylists in the studio and by the time the track was done they were singing the bass rhythm and the chorus. The drum & bass mix up was a trialled and tested method. Once we put it in there everyone went crazy in the studio and that's why we thought we would keep it there."
  • Tinie Tempah's real name is Patrick Chukwuem Okogwu Jr. but by the age of 13 he had invented his stage name. He explained to The Independent: "I looked up 'anger' in the thesaurus, and I was staring at 'temper.' I thought, 'This is a little bit aggressive.' I didn't want to scare anyone off. So I added Tinie. By playtime, Tinie Tempah was born."
  • The song won the 2011 Brit Award for Best Single. Tempah was also honored for Best British Breakthrough Act at the same ceremony.
  • This was named Best Contemporary Song at the 2011 Ivor Novello Awards.
  • Tempah told NME about his collaboration with Labyrinth and how they tried to reclaim British music for British audiences: "I had never met Labyrinth before. I had really no expectation. I think I had heard Master Shortie's mixtape at the time, which was completely different to what we ended up making anyway, so I liked him for that reason. I didn't know what Labyrinth looked like; I didn't know how old he was. Based on his voice I had heard on the mixtape, I thought he was like a white guy in his thirties, to be honest with you. So I remember getting in there and meeting somebody that I could instantly relate, that was relatable to me and obviously that sparked up so many different things. We were both in the same sort of position in the sense that we were both trying to become and be heard and be discovered. We both didn't like the way American music was like really dominating England, like every so often it just really does for awhile and people are like, 'You know, we're just going to listen to Americans for like six years.' And like everything ends up sounding the same, and they end up taking influences from European music and British music anyway and just feeding it back to us, and we're like, 'This is amazing.' So at the time I think Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas were like killing the whole sh--, so we were kind of just talking about how, you know, this is not really cool, and how come there's not many artists that come from where we've come from that can make something that people just love, and therefore why don't we do something that goes against everything that that is?"

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