"I Am the Best" () is a song by South Korean girl group 2NE1. YG Entertainment released the song for digital download and streaming as the third single from the group's self-titled second extended play (EP) on June 24, 2011. Written and produced by Teddy Park, "I Am the Best" is an electro house and electropop track that integrates hip hop and Middle Eastern elements through its instrumentation. Its lyrics contain themes of self-confidence and narcissism.
Music journalists praised the production and 2NE1's performance and considered it a pioneer of the Korean wave and K-pop's "girl crush" concept, which denotes themes of ferocity and female empowerment. Many publications ranked it among the best K-pop songs of the decade and all time. It peaked at number one on the South Korean Gaon Digital Chart and was the fourth-best-selling single of 2011 in South Korea, with more than 3.4 million downloads sold. It won Song of the Year at the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards and Best Dance & Electronic Song at the 9th Korean Music Awards.
Seo Hyun-seung directed the music video for "I Am the Best", which features the members in glam punk fashion and won a MTV Video Music Award Japan for Best New Artist Video in 2012. The song received renewed attention after appearing in a 2014 commercial for Microsoft's Surface Pro 3; Capitol Records released it in the United States on December 10, 2014. The single peaked at number 61 on the French SNEP singles chart and made 2NE1 the first Korean group to have a number-one song on the Billboard US World Digital Songs chart.
Background and composition To promote girl group 2NE1's new extended play (EP), YG Entertainment released a single every three weeks starting from April 21, 2011, to promote all six tracks from the EP. "Don't Cry" (a solo single by group member Park Bom) and "Lonely" were the first two singles, and they both peaked at number one on the South Korean Gaon Digital Chart. YG released "I Am the Best" for digital download and streaming as the third single on June 24. In a press release, YG announced that it was an "intense" song combining electronic music and hip hop, which appealed to youths who were part of the clubbing culture.
YG Entertainment collaborator Teddy Park, who had produced most of 2NE1's past releases, wrote and produced "I Am the Best". Lee Kyung-joon engineered the track, which was mixed by Jason Robert. The Japanese-language version of the song was first made available for download via on July 20, 2011, and was later included in the Japanese edition of the EP (Nolza) on September 21 as part of the group's debut in the country. Prior to the release of CL's first studio album Alpha in 2021, she held a live countdown event and played several snippets of unreleased versions of songs from both herself and 2NE1, and revealed that "I Am the Best" had originally featured Canadian singer Justin Bieber.
"I Am the Best" is three minutes and 28 seconds long. It incorporates a range of musical styles (electronic, electro house, hip-hop, African rhythms and reggae), synthesizers, Middle Eastern-inspired strings in the song's middle eight, and chants. Critics described the genre as electro house and electropop. Tim Chan from Rolling Stone noted the song's ability to bridge cultures and genres, "gloriously weav[ing] a Middle Eastern synth line in the middle of a glossy electro-pop track." Sociology professor John Lie highlighted the song as an example of the innovation of K-pop's formula, noting that it "subtly subverts the K-pop aesthetic and ethos" by incorporating a variety of different influences. The song is recognized as an empowerment anthem, with its lyrics centered around themes of self-confidence and narcissism.
Critical response Music critics applauded the musical styles of "I Am the Best" and 2NE1's performance. Discussing the rise of the Korean wave in November 2011, James Brooks of Pitchfork highlighted the song's "show-stopping" energy and 2NE1's "manic, larger-than-life charisma". In The New York Times, Jon Caramanica wrote that the song was "a postcard from the moment" when K-pop, which had been bound by the sound of other countries, "was beginning to embrace excess as its own style". Caramanica called 2NE1 a powerful influence in the industry, almost "ruthlessly modern", and believed that "'I Am the Best' encapsulated its "high-grade attitude". Slant Magazine featured it in their list of the 25 Best Singles of 2011; critic Jonathan Keefe described the track as "a jaw-dropping, vibrant triumph of pure swagger and verve" and cited it as an example of the "unmitigated joy of K-pop".
Korean Music Awards selection committee member Seo Jeong-min highlighted the song's "powerful, sensuous, and addictive electronic sound", and asserted that it firmly establishes itself as one of the representative tracks of K-pop. In Spins June 2012 list of the 21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time, "I Am the Best" ranked at number three, with Chuck Eddy writing that it "might've been the best single released on the planet in 2011". In October 2013, the Smithsonian Institution recognized "I Am the Best" as a key work in the spread of the Korean wave around the world with "Gangnam Style" by Psy, and "Fantastic Baby" by Big Bang, among others. In January 2017, Jeff Benjamin of Billboard picked the track as the number one single in the group's discography, writing that as "one of the most recognized K-pop songs in the world," the song speaks to 2NE1's legacy as a "bonafide, complete act", and commented that each member proves herself as an essential element of the "perfect-pop product" by turning into a superstar on her respective section. +"I Am the Best" on select critic rankings Publication Year List Rank Billboard 2019 The 100 Greatest K-pop Songs of the 2010s: Staff List 4 British GQ Best K-pop songs of the decade No order GQ The 24 Songs That Shaped the Decade Melon 2021 Top 100 K-pop Songs of All Time 7 Pitchfork 2018 The Story of Girl Groups in 45 Songs No order Rolling Stone 2023 100 Greatest Songs in the History of Korean Pop Music 8 Slant Magazine 2011 The 25 Best Singles of 2011 21 Spin Spin's Favorite Pop Tracks of 2011 8 2012 The 21 Greatest K-pop Songs of All Time 3 Stereogum The 20 Best K-pop Videos 1 2019 The 20 Best Music Videos of The 2010s 2 The Dong-a Ilbo 2016 Best female idol songs according to experts 4 Vice 2017 The 101 Best EDM Songs of All Time 101
Commercial performance "I Am the Best" was a commercial success in South Korea, entering the Gaon Digital Chart at number four for the week ending June 25, 2011. In only one day of tracking, the song received 632,923 streams and achieved 414,580 units in digital sales, and was ranked as the week's sixth best-selling song. The following week, "I Am the Best" rose three positions to the number one spot on the chart, becoming the group's fourth number one single. The song sold an additional 735,518 digital units and received 2,181,326 streams, ranking at number one on both the component download and streaming charts. In its third charting week, the song descended eight positions down to number nine, with Infinite Challenge collaboration track "Having an Affair" by GG (Park Myung-soo & G-Dragon) and Bom occupying number one. By the end of 2011, the song had accumulated a total of 3.47 million units in digital sales, and ranked as the fourth best-selling single of the year in South Korea. Factoring in digital sales, streams and background music downloads, "I Am the Best" was ranked as the seventh best performing song in the country overall on the year-end Gaon Digital Chart for 2011, with the EP's other singles "Lonely" and "Don't Cry" ranking at number four and five, respectively.
Two years after its release, Billboard listed "I Am the Best" as the sixth best-selling K-pop song in the United States during 2013. The following year, Microsoft featured the track in their Surface Pro 3 laptop commercial "Head to Head", which was broadcast from August 2014 onwards. It further increased exposure to the song, which reached number one in the US on Billboards World Digital Songs chart. It was the first K-pop song to achieve the feat, and the fourth Korean song to do so overall; the first three were Psy's singles, "Gangnam Style" (2012), "Gentleman" (2013) and "Hangover" (2014). It sold 6,000 copies during the week ending October 10, 2014, according to Nielsen SoundScan, becoming the group's best sales week in the US. As of 2020, the song held the distinction of being the fifth-longest-charting single on the World Digital Songs chart, tied with BTS' "Mic Drop" (2017). The song received airplay from radio stations in New York and Boston without officially being released to the airplay market, and attracted interest from some for being one of the few Korean-language songs to be played on American radios.
Elsewhere, in France, "I Am the Best" entered the SNEP singles chart at number 117 in the chart issue dated November 8, 2014. It rose to number 61 the following week where it peaked, and remained on the chart for four additional weeks. In Japan, the peaked at number 37 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart and number 53 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) in December 2014 for digital sales of over 100,000 units.
Music video Background
The first preview of the music video for "I Am the Best"—the song's first 10 seconds sung by group leader CL—was released on June 19, 2011. The preview was posted on YG Life and YouTube along with the song's cover art. YG Entertainment said that it would release an additional 10-second snippet of the track each day until the release date of the single on June 24. After a three-day delay due to an editing issue, the song's music video premiered on 2NE1's YouTube channel on June 27. It was directed by Seo Hyun-seung, who had previously directed the music videos for 2NE1's "Fire" (2009), "Try to Follow Me" (2010) and "Can't Nobody" (2010). The choreography practice video was uploaded to the group's channel on July 1 and featured the group in their practice studio wearing Adidas training outfits. A Japanese version of the music video was additionally uploaded later that month and was included in the DVD of Nolza in September.
The music video features a range of elaborate sets and props such as pyramids, diamonds, and globe-shaped chairs. The visual incorporates glam punk fashion and street style ensembles designed by Sophie Hulme, Gemma Slack, Cassette Playa and Gareth Pugh. It features CL dressed as a wrestler (complete with a sparkling WWE championship belt), and the members in futuristic and punk-inspired attire, metal-studded leather pieces, and unconventional hairstyles; for example, CL's resembles a bull's horn while Dara's resembles that of the Dragon Ball character Vegeta. They are seen ascending stairs during the third chorus while breaking platinum records with baseball bats, seemingly indicating the widening of boundaries of the genre. The final scene features the members with AK-47s, destroying a pyramid with a new structure emerging with "2NE1" reflecting in the light.
Reception