The rapper sang his iconic 2001 hit three times while celebrating the FIFA World Cup final at the Michelob ULTRA Pitchside Club
Credit: Michelob ULTRA
NEED TO KNOW
- Ludacris exclusively tells PEOPLE what inspired his 2001 hit song, “Move Bitch,” at the Michelob ULTRA Pitchside Club
- “I was in the car when I wrote it, so there you go,” he says, adding, “It was inspired by being in traffic, for sure”
- Ludacris released “Move Bitch” in late 2001 as part of his album Word of Mouf
Ludacris got the idea for one of his most iconic songs while sitting in the driver’s seat of his car.
While speaking to PEOPLE at the Michelob ULTRA Pitchside Club in celebration of the FIFA World Cup final, the 48-year-old rapper reveals that he was “in the car” when he wrote “Move Bitch” for his 2001 album, Word of Mouf.
“I was in the car when I wrote it, so there you go,” he says. “It was inspired by being in traffic, for sure.”
While performing at The Standard Biergarten in New York City on Saturday, July 18, Ludacris sang the iconic song three times at the request of an enthusiastic audience after a handful of celebrities — including Kevin Hart, James Marsden, Brooks Nader, Joey Graziadei and Tyler Cameron — wrapped up a few memorable rounds of celebrity karaoke.
Credit: Michelob ULTRA
“We just made history. We did ‘Move’ three times,” Ludacris yelled onstage. “We ain’t never done that. I love y’all, man.”
During an appearance on Drink Champs in February 2024, Ludacris quipped that, to this day, “that bitch never moved.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I don’t want her to move. As long as she don’t move, people gonna keep telling her to f—ing move,” he said with a laugh, noting that the sentiment has since evolved into its own movement. “The moment she moves, they might stop … I don’t even have to say s—, you just hold the mic out to the crowd.”
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In thinking back to releasing his first album, Incognegro, independently in 1999, Ludacris told PEOPLE last June that he was “taking the biggest risk by just putting music out there” without knowing “how the world would receive it.”
Credit: Michelob ULTRA
Making the move even more risky, the rapper took $20,000 out of his own pocket to fund his dreams.
“The fear of failure is something you have to overcome in order to accomplish great things. And I think that that was a crossroads of my life going into the success that it did because I told myself I wasn’t going to be afraid of the outcome,” he explained at the time. “Those are the type of risks that have the reward that I’ve been able to live off of the fruits of the label.”
After releasing his independent project, which included hits like “What’s Your Fantasy?” and “Southern Hospitality,” Ludacris signed with Def Jam in 2000 and rereleased the album under the title Back for the First Time that October.
“I put [Incognegro] out independently and then it got 50,000 sold, where Def Jam signed me,” he recalled. “I took two records off and added three other records. So what people may not know is that it was an independent album way before it got the success.”
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