On Wednesday, Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg surprised fans with a new song. He teamed up with singer T-Pain to create a cover of Lil Jon’s famous track “Get Low.” The result has left listeners baffled, with many questioning if it should ever have been attempted.
In this unexpected twist, Zuckerberg can be heard singing the well-known line, “to the window, to the wall,” from the original song—a line some may never have expected to hear from him.
This musical project has a personal backstory. Zuckerberg first met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at a college party where “Get Low” was playing. According to his Instagram post, the couple listens to this song every year to celebrate their relationship’s anniversary. This year, Zuckerberg took things a step further, teaming up with T-Pain to make an acoustic version of the 2002 hit.
The song’s sound is unusual as it gets, with many comparing it to a humorous style similar to comedian Weird Al Yankovic.
The song itself is filled with some pretty bold lyrics, and Zuckerberg even joked about it in his Instagram post, calling it a “lyrical masterpiece.” The slower tempo, combined with T-Pain and Zuckerberg’s careful pronunciation of each word, only makes the song’s edgy language stand out more.
Hearing a tech CEO repeat lines like “skeet” might sound like a joke, but this is real—and it’s certainly not what most people expected.
Other CEOs who tried to sing
Despite the awkwardness of this “Z-Pain” collaboration, the performance isn’t as bad as some might think. In fact, Zuckerberg’s voice stays in tune, likely thanks to some autotune assistance.
Compared to other CEO performances, it might even be considered impressive. For instance, venture capitalist Tim Draper once sang about Bitcoin, attempting to rhyme “Satoshi Nakamoto” with “Perfect-o” at a blockchain event.
Canva, a design platform, has also funded corporate songs about enterprise software. Even Zuckerberg’s sister, Randi, once released a crypto-themed video called “We’re All Gonna Make It,” borrowing the melody of Twisted Sister’s hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
And let’s not forget Facebook’s unusual employee benefit musical, which reportedly had a digital performance both on Zoom and in the metaverse—a surprising revelation from recent Facebook documents.
“Z-Pain has arrived ‘Get Low’ by @zuck and me out now,” T-Pain announced in his own Instagram post.
The collaboration wasn’t a complete surprise, as Zuckerberg and T-Pain had hinted at it just a day before, sharing a studio photo on their Instagram stories. Their friendship has grown over the last few years, sparked in 2021 when Zuckerberg joined T-Pain’s livestreams.