"I'm Real" is the name of two songs by Jennifer Lopez. One
is the song taken from her second studio album,
J.Lo(2001), and the other is "I'm Real (Murder Remix)",
which features rapper Ja Rule of The Inc. Records (formerly
known as Murder Inc. Records), included on the special edition
of
J.Lo, Lopez's remix album,
J to tha L-O!: The Remixes(2002), and Ja Rule's third
studio album,
Pain Is Love(2001). The remix contains an interpolation
of the Mary Jane Girls' 1983 song "All Night Long" written by
Rick James. Both versions reached number one on the U.S. Hot
100 on September 8, 2001 (the U.S. number-one single during the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks), and remained there for
five non-consecutive weeks. Ja Rule had been brought in after
the moderate U.S. performance of "Play", the second single from
J.Lo. Singer Ashanti (also on The Inc.) also provided
backing vocals on the Murder Remix. The two songs are
essentially different songs with the same title.
The music video for "I'm Real" followed the release of the
single in the U.S. It depicts Lopez driving a motorcycle
throughout the highway. The video also featured a cameo
appearance by underwear model Travis Fimmel and a dance-break
(to "More Bounce to the Ounce" by Zapp) with Lopez's soon-to-be
husband Cris Judd appearing as the lead dancer. The video for
the "I'm Real (Murder Remix)" featured Ja Rule and Irv Gotti,
and won the award for Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2002 MTV Video
Music Awards.
Despite the success of "I'm Real", there was a bit of
controversy over the use of the single's sample and the
structure of the song. The song contains an uncredited sample
from Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1978 version of Martin Denny's
1959 song "Firecracker" (while the remix on the other hand
officially interpolates the Mary Jane Girls' 1983 song "All
Night Long"). There have been reports that the "Firecracker"
sample was originally planned to be used for Mariah Carey's
"Loverboy". According to the music publisher of "Firecracker",
Carey called to license a sample of the song which had never
been sampled before and within a month Lopez called to do the
same. Carey felt that former husband and music executive at
Sony Music (Columbia Records), Tommy Mottola, was interfering
with her career by arranging for the sample to go to Lopez.
Upset by the conduct of Lopez and her ex-husband, Carey
featured a reference to the song on her single "Loverboy", her
first single released by her then-record company, Virgin
Records. The verse can be heard in Da Brat's rap section, where
she sings, "Hate on me, much as you want to, you can't do what
the fuck I do, bitches be, emulating me daily" over the melody
of "Firecracker". The word "bitch" was used in the song, but
when the song aired on the radio, the word "bitch" was deleted
and the song was cut down to three minutes and fifteen seconds
long.
Irv Gotti, who produced the remix of "I'm Real" featuring Ja
Rule, openly admitted during an interview with
XXLmagazine that Mottola contacted him with instructions
to create a song that sounded exactly like a song he had made
with Carey for the soundtrack entitled "If We" also featuring
Ja Rule.
Furthermore, some in the African American community were
outraged by Lopez's use of the word "nigga" in the Murder
Remix.
"I'm Real (Murder Remix)" debuted on the U.S. Hot 100 at
number sixty-six the week of July 7, 2001. By its fourth week,
the song had reached the top twenty, fueled by increasing
airplay of the single. By September 8, 2001, the single topped
the chart, dislodging Alicia Keys' "Fallin'" from a three-week
stint at number one. "I'm Real" spent the next three charting
weeks at the summit, and was subsequently knocked out of the
top spot by "Fallin'", which boasted an additional three
consecutive weeks at number one. After three weeks stalled at
number two, "I'm Real" returned to number one again for a final
two weeks, through October 27, 2001. "I'm Real (Murder Remix)"
was a staple on R&B/hip hop and pop radio during the summer
and fall of 2001, spending fifteen weeks on the top five of the
BillboardHot 100. In 2009 the single was named the 30th
most successful song of the 2000s, on the
BillboardHot 100 Songs of the Decade.
, The chart position of the Murder Remix was boosted by
radio play of the album track, which led to complaints of
unfairness and change of
Billboardpolicy in 2002. Afterwards, airplay of
identically named songs but with substantially different
melodies was not combined when computing chart positions.
Lopez's follow-up was "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)", another
Ja Rule-featured remix, which also reached number one on the
Hot 100.