"Whatever You Like" is a song by American recording artist
T.I., released as the first single from his sixth studio album,
Paper Trail. The song was written by T.I., James
Scheffer and David Siegel and produced by Jim Jonsin. "Whatever
You Like" served as the third single from
Paper Trailin the UK with a release date of 1 June 2009
. It was named the 16th most successful song from 2000 to 2009,
on the
BillboardHot 100 Songs of the Decade.
This song is T.I.'s most successful single to date, having
been on top of the charts for seven nonconsecutive weeks, and
in the top 3 of the charts for over 3 total months (12 weeks).
It has also been certified 4x platinum by the RIAA.
"Whatever You Like" was written by T.I., James Scheffer and
David Siegel. The song was produced by Jim Jonsin, who produced
Lil Wayne's single, "Lollipop". The production team worked on
the track when T.I. was in the studio recording his album.
The instrumentals for "Whatever You Like" are based on a
beat of lead synthesizers and drum pattern. The song runs for
4:09 and speaks about a man who can buy a woman whatever she
asks for, as well encourages the woman to ask for anything she
wants. It is a slow rap song and the chorus contains breathy
soft, singing vocals. The song also contains a sample from
"Redemption", the opening and closing theme song from the film
Rocky II.
A second version of "Whatever You Like" was released in
order to be suitable for radio stations. The original version
of the track features T.I saying "Late night sex so wet, it's
so tight", while the radio version replaces these lyrics with
the line "Baby I can treat you so special, so nice" and
replacing the line "Thing gets so wet/ it hits so right" with
"Girl, you smell so fresh, and look so nice". The music video
also uses the edited lyrics. Other changes include replacing
the line "Tell 'em other broke niggas be quiet" with "Tell 'em
other broke jokers be quiet" and muting the word "brain" in the
line "Brain so good/ could've sworn you went to college" due to
a slang definition of the word referring to oral sex.
The music video was filmed in Malibu, Los Angeles,
California, and was directed by Dave Meyers. Reagan
Gomez-Preston plays T.I.'s love interest. Cameos include Jackie
Long, Lil Duval, Jim Jonsin, and T.I.'s girlfriend Tameka
Cottle.
The video starts with a girl working at a fast food
restaurant. When T.I. comes into the restaurant, after ordering
hot wings, he hands the girl a folded up paper with his number
on it. She then calls him and T.I. invites her to his house.
The video then shows her living the high life, with T.I.
treating her to private jet rides, fancy dinners, and buying
her many expensive gifts, such as a new car. The video also
show clips of her living her normal life with her boyfriend.
Right before the end of the video, it shows the release date of
T.I.'s new album
Paper Trailwhile T.I. is on the red carpet with his
girl. At the end it is revealed it is all merely a fantasy
sequence the girl was having, and T.I. had only handed the girl
a hundred dollar bill, not his number.
Reviews for "Whatever You Like" were generally favorable.
Jared W. Dillon of Sputnikmusic called the song a "more
sophisticated take" on Lil Wayne's "Lollipop". Ian Cohen of
Pitchfork Media noted that the song contained virtually no
rapping while praising the synth-driven beat.
Blendermagazine ranked the song number 14 their Top 144
Songs of 2008 and number 18 on MTV's Commercially Released
Hip-Hop Singles.
"Whatever You Like" debuted at number 99 on the Hot 100. In
its third week, it achieved the third biggest leap to number
one in
BillboardHot 100 chart history when it jumped 70
positions, from number 71 to the top of the chart, breaking the
record previously held by Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder", which
jumped 64 to number one. It became T.I.'s first solo Hot 100
number one of his career and his second overall following the
Justin Timberlake song "My Love" where T.I. was a featured
artist. The song's jump can be partially attributed to huge
first week digital sales of 205,000, debuting at number one on
Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart. The song held the
number one position on the Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks,
before being replaced by Pink's "So What." The following week
the song knocked off "So What" to return to number one on the
Hot 100, marking its fourth week overall at the top of the
chart. It remained there for another week, marking its 5th week
overall. The next week T.I. replaced himself at number one with
the follow up single "Live Your Life" which hasn't been done
since Usher in 2004 with the first and second singles off his
album (Yeah! and Burn). After spending two weeks at number two
on the Hot 100, "Whatever You Like" again topped the chart by
knocking off "Womanizer" by Britney Spears, marking its 6th
non-consecutive week at number one on the Hot 100. This was the
first time a song returned to number one on the chart after the
artist's follow up single had already spent time at number one
("Live Your Life" having already spent a week at number one).
It is also only the third song to ever have three separate runs
at number one on the Hot 100, following Chic's "Le Freak" in
1979 and Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" earlier in 2008. The song
retained the number one position the following week, bringing
its total to seven non-consecutive weeks at number one.
On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, "Whatever You Like"
has peaked at number one, giving T.I. his thirteenth top ten on
the chart, and second number one song. It has also reached
number three on the Pop 100, giving T.I. his biggest solo pop
hit. The song has become T.I.'s biggest radio hit as well,
reaching number one on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, and number
four so far on Mainstream Top 40. Overall it has topped over
nine different
Billboardcharts.
Internationally, "Whatever You Like" debuted at number
twenty-two on the Canadian Hot 100 and has thus far risen to
number twelve. It made a strong debut on the Irish Singles
Chart at number nineteen. In Australia, on the ARIA Singles
Chart, it has so far peaked at number 15 and on the digital
track chart at number 15. In New Zealand, the song made a
massive jump from number 32 to number eight on the official
RIANZ Chart. The following week it became his first number one
in New Zealand and are certified by Platinum in that country.
It also debuted at number sixty on the UK Singles Chart and
peaked at number forty-seven due to strong download sales. It
will be re-released as a full CD single release on 1 June 2009
and has been added to the B-list at BBC Radio 1 .