"I Hate U" | ||||
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UK 12" single
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Single by Prince | ||||
from the album The Gold Experience | ||||
B-side | "I Hate U" (Quiet Night Mix by Eric Leeds) (7") "Endorphinmachine" (Japan CD) |
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Released | September 12, 1995 | |||
Format | 7" single 12" single Cassette single CD single CD maxi single |
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Recorded | Paisley Park Studios, September 1993–1994 | |||
Genre | R&B | |||
Length | 7" edit: 4:27 Album: 5:58 Extended Remix: 6:17 |
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Label | NPG/Warner Bros. | |||
Writer(s) | Prince | |||
Producer(s) | Prince, Ricky Peterson | |||
Prince singles chronology | ||||
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"I Hate U" (also spelled "Eye Hate U" to reflect the pictograph in the published title) is a song by American musician Prince from his 1995 album The Gold Experience. The track was the lead single in support of the album, released on September 12, 1995.
"I Hate U" was nearly a solo effort from Prince, although he credited Minneapolis musician Ricky Peterson with co-production and arranging, as well as providing additional keyboards.
Carmen Electra says Prince told her it was about her:
Electra: I went out with a guy—I hadn't slept with this person—and Prince found out. He said, "I wrote this song about you," and then he played "I Hate U."
Beginning with crashing drums, the "NPG Operator" welcomes the listener to "The Hate Experience" (which Prince would later entitle the song's maxi-single), before leading into the first verse where Prince sings in delicate falsetto about a cheating woman, whom he hates "like a day without sunshine". A church-like organ moves the song along, while a musical segment borrowed from "Baby" (a track from his 1978 album For You) provides breaks throughout the track. After the second verse and chorus, the song enters a lengthy middle section which is sung/spoken in Prince's normal voice. This section is a "courtroom drama" where Prince submits his evidence of his cheating lover to a judge. When he asks the woman to state her name for the court, he interrupts her with a vocal reference from the album's previous track—"Billy Jack Bitch". Toward the end of the drama, he states that being without her is killing him emotionally and that he actually still loves her. After a final chorus, again using an impassioned falsetto, Prince launches into a brief but effective guitar solo which climaxes and ends the song.
There is an unreleased video circulating amongst Prince collectors of this single. It features Prince's then-fiancee Mayte Garcia, dancing in some shots and Prince telling Mayte off in the courtroom, and Michael Bland (part of The New Power Generation) as the judge.