Shake Ya Ass (feat. Pharrell Williams)

Songs about shaking butt on the dance floor proliferated in the '70s, but always couched in euphemism to keep them clean. The biggest hit of the bunch was "Shake Your Booty" by KC & The Sunshine Band, but there was also "Shake Your Groove Thing" by Peaches & Herb and "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)" by The Jacksons. In 2000, Mystikal made his entry into the genre with "Shake Ya Ass," taking advantage of more permissive times to make it far more suggestive. It's still about dancing, but we get the idea that all this ass-shaking will lead to some bedroom action. America was ready for it: The song got a lot of airplay and permeated the popular culture. In 2003, Nelly, P. Diddy and Murphy Lee teamed up for a song with a similar theme that was a #1 hit: "Shake Ya Tailfeather."

Mystikal is a Dirty South rapper from New Orleans with a gruff staccato delivery. He could deliver lines like "shake ya ass" and "watch yourself" with lots of punch, so this song is right in his wheelhouse. The Dirty South rappers were all the rage at this time, but most had much more fluid flows than Mystikal. Other popular acts were Outkast and Ludacris.

"Shake Ya Ass" was produced by the Neptunes, who wrote it with Mystikal. The Neptunes - the team of Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams - also worked on the Jay-Z track "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)," around this time. They were on a sharp rise that soon got the attention of pop artists looking for modern hip-hop beats with broad appeal. Over the next few years, Britney Spears ("I'm A Slave 4 U"), Justin Timberlake ("Rock Your Body") and Nelly ("Hot In Herre") all landed Neptunes-produced hits.