text: Jim Farber of New York Daily News compared the lyrical content of the song to "Empire State of Mind" (2009) by Alicia Keys and Jay Z. According to Farber, "American Oxygen" "offers an un-ironic endorsement of the American dream, saluting unending possibility and upward mobility" and features Rihanna proudly singing the lines, "We sweat for a nickel and a dime, turn it into an empire."