It was written by Beyoncé, Elliott, Lana Moorer, Marie Wright, Jonathan Burks, LaShaun Owens, Karriem Mack, and Walter Murphy.

"Fighting Temptation" received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who complimented the theme, Beyoncé's vocal performance, and the verse-raps.

[1] As a whole, seven tracks featured the vocals of Beyoncé,[2] who had a starring role in the film, along with a choir made up of gospel, R&B and hip hop recording artists.

"Fighting Temptation" features additional vocals from American female rappers Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free.

[3] "Fighting Temptation" was written by Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Lana Moorer, Marie Wright, Jonathan Burks, LaShaun Owens, Karriem Mack, Walter Murphy, and Gene Pistilli.

[4] Heather Phares of AllMusic wrote that the song's lyrics make reference to a "celebration of ladies' night out and waiting for true love.

"[2] Dani Boobyer of The Situation UK commented that the soundtrack album "jumpstarts with the explosive 'Fighting Temptation' [...] setting R&B princess Beyoncé's sweet vocals against the hard sounds of Missy and MC Lyte's raps.

[10] The accompanying music video for the song was directed by Antti Jokinen and it features Beyoncé, Elliott, MC Lyte and Free.

The song then moves to a verse by Mc Lyte and we see her dancing in the middle of a semicircle of men wearing orange prison jumpsuits.

With the end of the final chorus, the song moves back to Elliott and Lyte, with the former on her rollerskates as at the beginning and the latter in front of the semicircle of men.