'03 Bonnie & Clyde

"'03 Bonnie & Clyde" is a song recorded by American rapper Jay-Z, released on October 10, 2002, as the lead single from his seventh studio album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Composed by Jay-Z, Kanye West, Darryl Harper, Ricky Rouse and Tyrone Wrice, and featuring Jay-Z's then-girlfriend, now wife, American singer Beyoncé Knowles, "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" sampled its beat from Tupac Shakur's 1996 song "Me and My Girlfriend" (released under Shakur's pseudonym Makaveli), paraphrasing its chorus, as well as Prince's 1987 song "If I Was Your Girlfriend". Inspired by the 1967 crime film Bonnie and Clyde, the song features programmed drums, bass instruments, and a flamenco guitar as instrumentation.

"'03 Bonnie & Clyde" was generally received with favorable reviews by music critics, who complimented the combination of Jay-Z's and Knowles' musical styles and the song's production. The single reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Jay-Z's second top ten single and Knowles' first as a solo artist. It charted at number one in Switzerland, number two in the United Kingdom and peaked in the top twenty in other European territories. "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).

The accompanying music video, directed by Chris Robinson, features Jay-Z and Knowles playing a modern-day version of the 1930s bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, and was nominated for Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" spawned a feud with American recording artist Toni Braxton, who had also sampled "Me and My Girlfriend" in her 2002 song "Me & My Boyfriend" and accused West and Jay-Z of stealing the idea of using the song as a sample (which both men later denied), even though Mariah Carey had earlier sampled the same song by Shakur on the track "How Much" from her 1999 album Rainbow. "'03 Bonnie & Clyde" was performed by Jay-Z and Knowles on several television shows and was later included on the set list of their concert performances and tours, most notably on their co-headlining On the Run and On the Run II tours.