Songfacts®:

• This is the first single from R&B singer-songwriter Trey Songz's fourth studio album, Passion, Pain & Pleasure. The song features Nicki Minaj, who hadn't yet released her first album but was already a big name, with features on "Knockout" by Lil Wayne, "My Chick Bad" by Ludacris and "2012 (It Ain't the End)" by Jay Sean.
• Songz and Minaj broke down the creation of the song on his Ustream page. "I'm in L.A. for BET [Awards] weekend, I'm working on a couple records, and I do this song called 'Red Lipstick,' and then I do 'Bottoms Up' the next day," Songz recalled. "I hit Nicki and I'm like, 'Man, I've got these two incredible records, I think one of them is gonna be my first single, and I need you to do it. Can you come this weekend? Can you come down?' I stayed a couple extra days and she came through," he continued. "Two, three days later I got a verse back that was just stupid."
  
  Minaj noted that fans had been waiting for the two stars to team up. "Every day, people say, 'When you gonna collaborate with Trey?' For some strange reason they wanted to see that collaboration," Minaj said. "So, when you hit me, I was very excited. I just thought, 'This is our time.'"
• Minaj revealed that she paid special attention to her verse. "I lived with it," she explained. "I kept on hitting you like, 'I'mma have it done today.' I think I did live with it for, like, three days because I was changing it up, I couldn't get it. But then, all of a sudden, something just hit me."
  
  The New York MC added that had some doubts at first, admitting that she considered dropping a line where she mimics the loopy, breathy speech of the late Anna Nicole Smith. "I was gonna take that part out because I was like, 'Trey is gonna think I'm crazy,'" she said. After consideration Minaj was cool with how her verse came together. "I'm just happy that I was able to do something that kinda kept that energy up," she enthused.
• As part of the promotion of this song, "Bottoms Up" shorts were made available to fans through Trey Songz's official site, along with other merchandise.
• The song music video was filmed on July 31, 2010 and directed by Anthony Mandler. Instead of taking inspiration from the song's lyrics about knocking back some drinks at the bar, Songz told MTV News the clip is a more surreal affair. 'Bottoms Up,' I feel, is a very creative video. [It's] different from the norm, different than what I feel is expected of me and anything I've shot for that matter," he told MTV News. "Anthony [Mandler] used a lot of different shooting techniques and I think it heightens whatever it is that the song has already. The drive, the vigor, the club anthem, the energy in the record is definitely heightened with this video."
  
  Songz explained the clip resembles a surreal carnival versus a crowded bar. "It's as if I'm walking through some kind of funhouse, filled with women and different seductive things," he said."
• According to MTV News, the song title is derived from the phrase "bottles up," but a member of Songz's crew suggested the more broad twist "Bottoms Up."
• The phrase "Bottoms Up" is a drinking toast of British naval origin. The bottoms are those of the glasses as they are tilted up over the drinkers' mouths.
• This was Minaj's thirteenth visit to the Hot 100 as a principal or guest artist. When the song pushed 13 - 10 on the chart dated October 30, 2010 it became her first Top 10 entry.
• Here's a chart coincidence for those of you who like that sort of thing: The week that this toast-titled song moved into the Hot 100 Top 10, one place below at #11 was Pink's "Raise Your Glass."