"Rich Girl" is a song by American singer and songwriter Gwen Stefani from her debut solo studio album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004). Produced by Dr. Dre, the track features American rapper Eve, and is a remake of Louchie Lou & Michie One's 1993 song of the same name, which in turn interpolates the Fiddler on the Roof song "If I Were a Rich Man". The song discusses Stefani's dreams of fame and riches from the perspective of "when she was just an Orange County girl".
The last song to be included on the album, The two decided to work together again after talking in Stefani's laundry room during a party. After Stefani had co-written more than 20 songs for her solo debut, she approached Dr. Dre, who had produced for her twice before. Dre had produced "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" as well as "Wicked Day", a track that was excluded from No Doubt's 2001 album Rock Steady.
After playing some of the songs on which she had been working, Dr. Dre told her, "You don't want to go back there." Instead of using one of the tracks, Dr. Dre instead suggested using English reggae duo Louchie Lou & Michie One's 1993 song "Rich Girl", which itself interpolated "If I Were a Rich Man" from the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof.
Composition
left|thumb|225px|The chorus, which indirectly draws from "If I Were a Rich Man", is backed by a repeating C-G dyad
"Rich Girl" is a reggae song composed in the key of C minor. It is written in common time and moves at a moderate 100 beats per minute. The beat is accompanied by an alternating perfect fifth dyad and an accented piano trichord. The song is written in verse–chorus form, Stefani's voice ranges from G<sub>3</sub> to E<sub>5</sub>.
The introduction consists of the repeated use of the word na. Stefani reaches her highest note of the song, E<sub>5</sub>, as part of a trichord and her lowest, G<sub>3</sub>, during this section. and she namechecks fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano. Stefani commented that the references were not product placement but that she included them "because I think they're rad and want to talk about them. [...] I'd give all my money to [Westwood] and buy all her clothes!" A bridge, in which Stefani's voice is overdubbed, precedes the second chorus. During the second verse Stefani discusses her Harajuku Girls, and she then repeats the bridge. Following Eve's rap, Stefani sings the chorus and closes the song by repeating the introduction as a coda. Krissi Murison of the NME, however, described it as "playground chant featuring a tough-girl ragga cameo from Eve." John Murphy from musicOMH gave it an overall positive review, calling it "a great fun song, and far superior to some of the dross that comes out these days", but also commented that it did not live up to "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" and found the references to the Harajuku Girls "slightly creepy." Lisa Haines of BBC Music referred to the song as "disco gold, impossibly girly and very easy to dance to." The song drew comparisons to the No Doubt album Rock Steady, and Charles Merwin of Stylus Magazine described it as "a lite version of 'Hey Baby'."