"Wonderman" | |||||||||||||||||
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Single by Tinie Tempah featuring Ellie Goulding | |||||||||||||||||
from the album Disc-Overy | |||||||||||||||||
B-side | "Simply Unstoppable" | ||||||||||||||||
Released | 7 March 2011 | ||||||||||||||||
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Recorded | 2010 | ||||||||||||||||
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Length | 3:41 | ||||||||||||||||
Label | Parlophone | ||||||||||||||||
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Tinie Tempah singles chronology | |||||||||||||||||
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"Wonderman" is the sixth single by English rapper Tinie Tempah. It features vocals by English singer Ellie Goulding and is the fifth official single from Tinie's debut album, Disc-Overy, being the second song to be released as a single following the release of the album – the first being "Invincible". The song was produced by long-time collaborator Labrinth. who has also worked with Tinie Tempah on "Pass Out" and "Frisky", and mixed by James F Reynolds, who mixed the entire Disc-Overy album. The single released on 7 March 2011. The single has peaked at number twelve on the UK Singles Chart.
Ellie Goulding provides guest vocals on this track, which lays Tempah's rap over a dreamy electro pop beat. She told the BBC program Newsbeat: "He's one of these people I believe in, and not just because of his music, but because he's a lovely person. [The track is] about not having all that much when you're little and then working very hard and then having a lot more than you used to have and being very grateful. So I can relate to it – it's really cool." Tempah told The Sun how he hooked up with the electro-pop singer: "We met properly earlier this year at the Dingwalls venue in Camden, North London, when we were on the same bill and just hit it off. She's just a really cool chick. She's come to watch a few of my shows and vice versa. We continued to stay in touch. The media kept saying. 'When are you guys going to work together?' So I was like 'You know what? Let's do it for the album.'"Labrinth also provided backing vocals although he was uncredited.
Nick Levine of Digital Spy gave the song a positive review, giving it four out of five stars and stating: "A typically savvy Labrinth production, 'Wonderman' blends elements of rap, rock, electronica and dance into a parcel as glossily tempting as all the best pop – and then ribbons it with the inimitable quivery vocals of Ellie Goulding, sounding suitably celestial as she sings about "the chosen one" calling his name. And Tinie himself? Well, to his credit, he's still eking juice out of this well-squeezed theme – or maybe we're just suckers for a rapper who namechecks Kestral Lager and Benidorm in a song whose subject matter touches on the fatalistic, the supernatural and the biblical?"