Da' Butt

Spike Lee commissioned this song for his 1988 movie School Daze, his first major picture. He needed a song for a scene where the kids would be doing a new dance called "Da Butt," so he called his friend Marcus Miller and asked him to write one. Miller is best known for his work with Luther Vandross, but he had done production work and played bass on hundreds of tracks for artists like Herbie Hancock, Natalie Cole and George Benson. He used to play in a group called Jamaica Boys with Chaka Khan's brother Mark Stevens, so he called Stevens and they wrote this song. After Spike Lee approved the demo, Miller asked the nine-piece Washington, DC band E.U. to record it. Spike brought some of the actors from the film to the studio, and they recorded it with a lot of improvisation and a party vibe - all the shouting and laughing is genuine. It was Stevens who came up with the "get your backfield in motion" line - a great use of football terminology to describe booty shaking.

E.U. stands for "Experience Unlimited." The group had a hit in the DC area with a 1980 song called (ironically enough) "Rock Yer Butt." "Da Butt" became their best-known song and a highlight of their stage shows. The song didn't get a lot of radio play, but was a #1 R&B hit.

This was one of the first "Butt" songs. Songs like "Rump Shaker" and "Baby Got Back" became popular a few years later as women with big booty gained acceptance.