How Pusha T Wrote McDonald's Infamous 'I’m Lovin' It' Jingle and No One Knew
How McDonald's recruited Pusha T for their biggest marketing campaign yet.
Pusha T is an accomplished rapper, president of GOOD Music and co-owner of his own clothing brand 'Play Cloths'. Back in 2003, Pusha T was simply a member of the Clipse with his brother No Malice.
Clipse was closely associated and signed to the Star Trak record label spearheaded by Pharrell Williams.
Because of the duo’s partnership with Pharrell, they ended up collaborating with Justin Timberlake following his split from NSYNC.
Clipse was featured on Timberlake’s debut solo single ‘Like I Love You’ produced by The Neptunes released in 2002.
The following year, Timberlake and Pusha T went on to collaborate on the song 'I'm Lovin' It'. Pusha T co-wrote the song and McDonald’s paid Timberlake $6 million to sing the song.
I'm Lovin' It was released in November of 2003 and charted well internationally. Because of this, it makes Pusha T a composer of McDonald’s longest-running marketing campaign in history.
This particular story wasn’t unearthed until 2016 when Pusha T tweeted about it. Following on from Pusha T’s tweet, two of the song’s co-creators dismiss Pusha T’s involvement in the song.
The co-writers dismissal of Pusha T’s claim is contradicted by the fact Pusha T’s rapping can be clearly heard on the Global advert version of the song.
Since the song’s creation, the jingle and slogan are still used by McDonald’s to this very day. Despite Pusha T writing the song, he said that he doesn't own publishing rights to the song.
In an interview with Drink Champs, Pusha T said; “I took a super L, just upfront, no publishing. Shoutout to Steve Stoute, he gave me the check and I was like ah great.'” “I want artists to know that part. Keep your publishing. That check will be nice, but 'I’m Lovin’ It' been running for how long now? I did This in ’03. Who knows what it would have been?”
Ironically, Pusha T says he does own 40% of the publishing rights to an Arby’s commercial jingle.
Stream Pusha T on Spotify and Apple Music here.
