“Otis” by Jay-Z & Kanye West featuring Otis Redding

Jay-Z and Kanye West built "Otis" on Otis Redding's version of "Try a Little Tenderness", flipping the late soul singer's recording into the beat for the second single from their joint album Watch the Throne, released on July 20, 2011. West produced it alone, and the two trade lines about money, decadence and fame like men racing to spend it first.

Critics loved the back-and-forth and the Redding-sampled beat, which some compared to West's The College Dropout. It peaked at 12 on the Hot 100 and 2 on both the Hot Rap Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, won Best Rap Performance at the 54th Grammy Awards, and got a Spike Jonze video in which the pair hack a Maybach into a doorless, windowless ride and take it for a spin.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.