"What About Us?" is a song by American recording artist Brandy Norwood. It was written by LaShawn Daniels, Rodney Jerkins, Kenisha Pratt, Nora Payne, and Norwood for her third studio album, Full Moon (2002), featuring main production by Jerkins. An offbeat, aggressive high-tech track, the song's development was motivated by the fact that the singer wanted something different – an aggressive, sexier and edgier sound with a message which would give women strength while also reflecting her own growth and maturity.
"What About Us?" was one of a couple of new tracks Jerkins worked on while he was putting the finishing touches on Norwood's Full Moon album in Los Angeles, California. After playing it to her, enthusiastic Norwood asked Jerkins to save the "offbeat, aggressive high-tech track" for the album: "I was like 'Oh my God, Rodney, this is it", she said in an interview with MTV News the following year. "This is exactly what the industry needs. We can maybe change the game with this.' He said, 'Yeah, this is what I'm going for'."The singer eventually consulted longtime collaborators LaShawn Daniels, Nora Payne and Kenisha Pratt to re-write several lyrics in the song. "I told them what I wanted to talk about. 'This is an aggressive record – it's edgy, it's sexy. I wanna sing about something that's sexy and edgy.' I revisited my past in my mind and kind of told them what I wanna talk about.
Norwood has noted that it took the team a while to get it because she didn't want "that sound that’s already saturated the industry. It’s important to me to be a trendsetter and change the game. It was a great feeling to see Rodney soar like that."[6] The song's protagonist describes the aftermaths of an untrue love, facing would-be Mr. Right with the current point of the one-sided attachment. "It was about being in a relationship that's not working anymore," Norwood said in a 2005 interview, adding: "'What About Us' was a little more aggressive and different for me. I'd say it was a little bit ahead of its time..."
