Gaye wrote and produced "Got to Give It Up" with engineer/producer Art Stewart. It was originally a 12-minute song included as the final side of his 1977 live double-album Marvin Gaye Live at the London Palladium. A single version was edited down to 4 minutes, and it topped the American Pop, R&B and Dance singles charts. It replaced Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" on the Billboard Hot 100 but was overtaken a week later by Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky)."
By the mid-'70s, Gaye and his labelmates at Motown were feeling the pressure to record dance-floor friendly hits as disco was on the rise. Gaye resisted until he had an idea to parody the genre. "Got to Give It Up" was originally titled "Dancing Lady" as a response to Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady."
Gaye sang both lead and background on this and also played the keyboards. Frank Beverly of Maze supplied the percussion and on backing vocals were Marvin's future second wife Janis Hunter and his brother Frankie Gaye. His little sister, Zeola Gaye, can also be heard on the track.
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