“No Candle No Light” by Zayn (featuring Nicki Minaj)

“No Candle No Light” is a song performed by British singer Zayn and Trinidadian-American rapper Nicki Minaj. This song narrates the tale of two lovers who have to face the sad fact that their relationship has lost its spark.

The couple (Minaj and Zayn) tell themselves they need to accept that certain things in life aren’t meant to be. And one of these things is their romance. The couple use the entire song heavily contemplating their romance. And at the end of the day, they both know they have to do just one thing – go their separate ways. There’s no point fighting for the romance anymore.

Facts about “No Candle No Light”

• As many as eight songwriters (including Minaj and Zayn) teamed up to pen this song.
• Korean American songwriter/producer Brian Lee teamed up with fellow producers Sawry and TJ Routon to produce this track.
• On November 15, 2018 RCA Records released “No Candle No Light”.
• Minaj does more of singing than rapping in this song. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t rap on this track. This is something very unusual for Minaj to do!
• Although the song was released in November 2018, rumors of the collab began spreading as far back as in the early parts of 2017. According to a number of Zayn fans, they first heard a tiny snippet of the collab when Zayn played it at a listening party in March 2017. Zayn didn’t confirm nor deny these rumors until in a September 2017 interview he had with BBC Radio 1. In that interview, he finally confirmed that he had indeed collaborated with Nicki Minaj on a song.
• Minaj once referred to this song as her “favorite song of all time”.

Is this the first time that Nicki Minaj and Zayn are collaborating?

Yes. Prior to this single, both Zayn and Minaj had never ever worked together on any track. Owing to this, this collab was quickly tagged as one of the most unlikely collabs of 2018.

In the song, Minaj and Zayn use the expression “I woke up on the wrong side of ya”. What does that phrase mean?

The line in question was used multiple times in the song’s chorus. It actually isn’t a real expression in the English language. This expression was coined, just like Beyonce did with the term “bootylicious”. The writers might have created this expression from the real idiom “get on the wrong side of someone“. This idiomatic expression means to do something that makes someone angry with you.

They could also have been inspired by the expression “get up on the wrong side of bed“. When someone is unusually irritable or grouchy, he/she can be said to have gotten up on the wrong side the bed.

It is highly possible that either or both of these aforementioned phrases inspired the line “woke up on the wrong side of you“.

What musical genre is “No Candle No Light”?

We can categorize it into the genre of tropical house.