"California Gurls" is an electropop song by American singer-songwriter Katy Perry. It serves as the lead single of her third studio album, Teenage Dream. The song features rapper Snoop Dogg, and was produced by Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Benny Blanco. According to Perry, the song is an answer song to "Empire State of Mind". The song was originally intended to be sent to mainstream and rhythmic airplay on May 25, 2010. However, after clips from Perry's new album were leaked online, her label rushed released the song to radio on May 7, 2010, and also began to stream it on her website. It was subsequently released to iTunes on May 11, 2010. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks, giving Perry her second US number-one single and Snoop Dogg his third. The song reached number one in over 10 countries, including United States, UK, Canada, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, and New Zealand. On December 2nd, the song received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
In an interview with HitQuarters, Perry's A&R at the time, Chris Anokute, said that while travelling back from an Oscar after-party Katy texted him to say she didn't think the album was finished and that it needed one more song. She said that she wanted to write a song about California girls.
During a Rolling Stone photo shoot in April 2010, Perry revealed details about the song, allegedly a response to Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind', she stated:
During a Rolling Stone photo shoot in April 2010, Perry revealed details about the song, allegedly a response to Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind', she stated:
"It's so great that 'Empire State of Mind" is huge and that everybody has the New York song, but what the fuck? What about LA? What about California? And it's been a minute since we've had a California song and especially from a girl's perspective. We took the references of Prince, which is always a great reference, and we took a lot of the '90s, ... almost that house music, some of those references."
Initially the song was titled "California Girls", but Perry changed the spelling to "California Gurls" at the request of her manager in tribute to Big Star, which had recently lost one of its members, as a reference to their song "September Gurls". After the song was leaked online, Capitol Records decided to release it early, and it was posted on Perry's site, and the radio date was moved up from May 25, 2010, to May 7, 2010. The artwork was also released, featuring Perry laying out on the beach sand with a bejeweled bikini.
Perry used Wikipedia to research which rapper she wanted to collaborate with for this track, browsing West Coast artists before selecting Snoop Dogg. The Beach Boys had allegedly threatened a lawsuit due to Snoop Dogg's line "I wish they could all be California Girls", which they consider to be one of their classic lines in their "California Girls" song.