D minor · Camelot 7A · 164 BPM
Black And Yellow
by Wiz Khalifa
- 164
- BPM
- D minor
- Key
- 7A
- Camelot
- 69
- Danceability
- 7
- Acousticness
Weeks after its release, "Black And Yellow" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Wiz Khalifa his first chart-topping single in the United States. The track, released on September 14, 2010, as the lead single from his album Rolling Papers, climbed slowly at first, debuting at number 100 before dropping out of the chart entirely the following week. It re-entered at number 64 and eventually hit the top on its eighteenth charting week, selling 198,000 digital copies in that week alone.
The song grew out of Khalifa's Pittsburgh upbringing and his car, a yellow Dodge Challenger Hemi with black stripes. He chose those colors as a tribute to his hometown, whose official colors are black and gold, as are those of its professional sports teams. The lyrics never mention Pittsburgh or sports, but the music video, directed by Bill Paladino and filmed in the city, made the link plain, showing local landmarks and apparel tied to the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates.
In the year after release, the record spawned dozens of remixes, parodies and remakes in the United States and abroad, many honoring local sports teams. At Super Bowl XLV in 2011, the Steelers used it as their fight song while the Green Bay Packers countered with Lil Wayne's remix "Green and Yellow", the first time both Super Bowl teams had used the same song. Khalifa later earned Grammy nominations for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance at the 2012 ceremony.
Black And Yellow runs at 164 BPM, the tempo of footwork, gabber and fast metal. In classical terms it sits in vivace territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.46 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 366 ms. It is in D minor, Camelot 7A, which shares its notes with F major and mixes cleanly with G minor and A minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.