“Wild Side” is the first collaboration between Normani and rapper Cardi B. The single marks the beginning of Normani’s highly-anticipated era for her upcoming debut album.

A snippet of the track was posted to Normani’s social media on February 5, 2021, with the caption, “know it’s been awhile.” Five months after the teaser was posted, Normani deleted all of her posts from her Instagram account, except the teaser video, which led fans speculating an announcement was imminent.

On July 14, 2021, the release date and cover art for the track were revealed, as well as the announcement of Cardi B being featured.

Cardi, Cardi! Yo, and the fact that she was able to hop on this record, like, I kid you guys not, I was already in rehearsal. I was already in rehearsal for the music video and I’m like, yo, like, not even with this record and mine, but I’m thinking, like, I’ve gotta do something with her. What record? Like, how can we make this happen? And it just so happened, Kollin [Normani & Cardi’s stylist], hit me up and was like, “Actually, that Wild Side record…” She was like, “Is it that Wild Side record? I wanna be a part of that Wild Side record. I wanna hop on that.” And the shit happened and she delivered while we were in rehearsal. So while we were rehearsing, we actually didn’t have the verse yet and then we got the verse and the shit just happened.“ – Normani via Instagram Live