Much more than just a worldwide smash, in 2010 Aloe Blacc’s brilliant track I Need A Dollar became the defining anthem of the global recession. Here, the singer reveals how he had lived out the lyrics years before the era of collapsing economies...

My recession came early. I started writing I Need A Dollar back in 2003, after being laid off from my corporate job. I had spent a couple of years after college working as a business consultant, but ...