American Oxygen

American Oxygen

Rihanna

On March 5th, 2015, Rihanna previewed this song that would become the theme song for 2015 March Madness coverage.

A month later, she performed the song live during the March Madness Festival before releasing it exclusively via Jay-Z’s streaming service Tidal a day later on April 5th. The release on Tidal was accompanied with a rather political video depicting several iconic scenes from American history, some controversial, including images from the recent protests surrounding the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

According to Billboard’s interview with Sam Harris, “Oxygen” co-writer and member of band X Ambassadors, cites it took him nearly a year to write “American Oxygen.” It began as a track that producer Alex Da Kid had, and slowly but surely, Harris developed from just a title, a backing track and the first two lines to a full-blown song. Harris highlights Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. as a major influence.

“This country is great and has the potential to be something really, really incredible, but there are a lot of problems that we don’t acknowledge and it’s important to shed light on both those things.”