A major · Camelot 11B · 152 BPM
Pump It
by The Black Eyed Peas
- 152
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 65
- Danceability
- 2
- Acousticness
Will.i.am wrote "Pump It" after stumbling across Dick Dale's music while working in Brazil. He had bought a compilation album believing it contained something else, and was initially annoyed to find Dale's 1962 surf version of "Misirlou" on it instead. His frustration quickly turned to enthusiasm, and he decided the group should record a song built around that sound. The work began on a train, where he jump-started his computer and made some beats, continued on a flight to Tokyo where he tightened up the track, and finished with vocals recorded in a Tokyo park.
The song was written by will.i.am alongside his Black Eyed Peas bandmates apl.de.ap and Fergie, with frequent collaborator Thomas van Musser also receiving a credit, and it was produced by will.i.am. Because it borrowed so heavily from "Misirlou", a recording famous for its use in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Nicholas Roubanis was credited as a co-writer. The track appeared on the group's fourth studio album, Monkey Business, released in 2005.
A&M Records and Interscope Records put "Pump It" out as the fourth and final single from the album on January 16, 2006. It peaked at number 18 on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it the group's fourth consecutive top-20 single there, and reached the top ten in 13 countries. Later versions included "Pump It Harder" on the deluxe edition of The E.N.D. in 2009 and Tiësto's "Pump It Louder" on 2023's Drive.
Pump It runs at 152 BPM, the tempo of hard techno, punk and fast rock. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.58 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 395 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.