Gold Digger

West and Jon Brion produced it, with Jamie Foxx featured and Plain Pat and Don C on additional vocals. West made the beat at Ludacris's house in Atlanta, and he first wrote it for Shawnna's 2004 debut Worth tha Weight. She passed it on. West had written the chorus from a woman's point of view, and he wrote the verses from his own. He shaped a third verse shortly before release. In late 2003 he had previewed an early version with John Legend in New York.

It is built on a loop of Ray Charles's I Got a Woman, written by Charles and Renald Richard. After watching the film Ray with John Mayer, West had Foxx sing an interpolation of the song, in case the sample failed to clear. A-Trak recorded the scratches late in the process, and the drums recycle patterns from Get Em High on The College Dropout. West later told Zane Lowe that he never really liked the song but knew it would earn him money.

Chart and awards

It entered the Hot 100 at number 92, then climbed to number 1 and stayed there for 10 consecutive weeks. It ended the 14-week run of Mariah Carey's We Belong Together. It sold over 80,000 downloads in a week, a record at the time, and it was number 2 in the UK. The RIAA certified it eight-times platinum in September 2020. It won Best Rap Solo Performance at the 2006 Grammys and was nominated for Record of the Year, which went to the Dixie Chicks. Hype Williams directed the video, which won the BET Award for Video of the Year in 2006. It was voted the best single of 2005 in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll.

Live

West and Foxx performed it at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards and at the 2006 Grammys with a marching band. On Saturday Night Live on 1 October 2005 West led from it into Touch the Sky. He played it in a medley at the 2006 Brit Awards and in his headlining set at Coachella in 2011, and he used it as the encore of his Glastonbury set in 2015.