"Chained to the Rhythm" is a song by American singer-songwriter Katy Perry that served as the lead single from her fifth studio album, Witness. It features vocals from Jamaican singer Skip Marley. The artists co-wrote the track with its producers Max Martin and Ali Payami, with additional writing from Sia. Capitol Records released the track on February 10, 2017, as a digital download. "Chained to the Rhythm" is a dance-pop, disco and dancehall song, with lyrics about political awareness. The track reached number one in Poland and Hungary, as well as the top five in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States and the top 10 in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Mathew Cullen directed the song's music video, which was released February 21, 2017. It features Perry in an amusement park called "Oblivia". It was nominated for three awards at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards. Perry and Marley promoted the song with live performances at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, the 2017 Brit Awards, and the 2017 iHeartRadio Music Awards. Production and release Perry described her fifth album Witness as a "360-degree liberation" record, with "Chained to the Rhythm" representing a "political liberation". The singer felt "kind of depressed" after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in November 2016, and "definitely didn't want to write a club banger" when the "world" was "on fire". She "channeled her frustration into new music" and said creating the track "was a nice exercise of like writing a song that at first listen is a really fun song, but I guess the more you dive into it, it has a different sub-text". Skip Marley told Billboard he and Perry made the song together after she heard his track "Lions" and wanted to collaborate with him. After the two spoke in January 2017, he "delivered the message that I had to deliver" while recording the track, describing it as "one of unification and love". On February 8, 2017, in a promotional campaign for "Chained to the Rhythm," disco balls playing the song were left in various international cities. Capitol Records released the song for download two days later as the album's lead single and onto American radio stations on February 14. The song earned over three million streams within twenty-four hours of its Spotify release,