Background
Rapper Plies was originally the performer of this song, but Akon replaced his verses with those of Snoop Dogg's for commercial reasons. Plies was arrested on July 2, 2006 for illegal gun possession while two of his people were charged with attempted murder after a shooting broke out at 238 West Nightclub in Gainesville, Florida. Plies was performing a concert when he was informed that his show would be cut 15 minutes short in order to give time to Lil' Boosie to perform right after. In response, Plies' entourage started to fire at the crowd resulting in the injury of 5 people with non-life threatening wounds. Shortly after, Plies was released after paying $50,000 bail. Akon wished to continue to promote his song, but remained worried that the recent incident involving Plies would reflect poorly on his label. Since the version with Snoop Dogg already circulated unofficially in the mixtape scene, Akon replaced the single and album edit since Snoop Dogg was already a well-received name, as opposed to that of an up-and-coming, controversial artist. Akon and Snoop Dogg's management also agreed to participate on each other's forthcoming albums. In an interview with Akon on Hot 97 he said that the song was sent for Trick Daddy but somehow ended up in the hands of Plies. It was said that Plies was not the originator of the song and should have never recorded to that beat in the first place. To make it up, Akon recorded and produced the single, "Hypnotized" for Plies, being featured on it also. This reached #14 on the U.S. Billboard 100 chart. Samples of the Roland TR-808 drum machine provide the song's bass drum, clap and hi-hat sounds. The song was covered in 2007 by CocoRosie. Their version of the song is written from the perspective of the pole dancer, who is described as a victim of childhood sexual abuse and her own drug addiction, (and implicitly, of all the men who are only interested in her as a sexual object).
Read more about this topic: I Wanna Love You (Akon Song)
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