The song was produced by YG Entertainment's main producer, Teddy Park. It was described as an electronic hip hop track that is similar to 2NE1's debut single "Fire". The style of the song is said to be familiar to the youth who are used to clubbing culture. The first teaser of the song was released on June 19, 2011 featuring 2NE1's leader, CL. The teaser was posted via YG-Life along with the official artwork of the song. YG Entertainment also revealed that they will release a 10-second snippet of the song each day until the full track release on June 24. On December 11, 2014, Capitol Records replaced YG Entertainment to distribute "I Am the Best" in the U.S. market. The song subsequently impacted Dance, Mainstream and Rhythmic radios in America the same day.
Music video
After a three-day delay on its planned release, the music video of the song premiered on 2NE1's official YouTube channel on June 27, 2011. It was directed by Seo Hyun Seung who also directed their previous music videos like "Fire", "Try to Follow Me" and "Can't Nobody". Upon the video's release and positively received performances, the group announced a Dance Competition where fans were to attempt the choreography and post it online, and the members of 2NE1 would choose the winner. The winner was an all-female dance troupe from Vietnam called L.Y.N.T. On October 6, 2014, the music video crossed the 100 million views mark on YouTube and became the eighth K-pop music video to do so.
International reception
In Korea, the song debuted at number 4 on the Gaon Digital Chart for the week ending June 25, 2011. The following week, "I Am the Best" rose three positions to the number one spot on the chart, becoming the group's fourth number one single on the Gaon Chart. By the end of 2011, the song had sold 3.47 million digital copies and was the fourth best-seller of the year in the country. It won the "Song of the Year" award at the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards. In Japan, the song was not commercially successful, peaking at number 37 on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart and number 53 on the Japan Hot 100. Following the broadcasting of Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 commercial in August 2014, the song reached number one on Billboards World Digital Songs chart with 6,000 copies sold on the week ending October 11, 2014. The song also received airplay from American radio stations without officially being released to the airplay market. Spins June 2012 list of the "21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time" had "I Am the Best" at number 3, with Chuck Eddy writing that the song "might’ve been the best single released on the planet in 2011". In November 2019, the song was number 4 in Billboards "100 Greatest K-Pop Songs of the 2010s" list.
