Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
The Humpty Dance (1990)
In 1990, the world was changing. The Cold War was ending, new wars in the Middle East were beginning and some nerds were making progress on something called the World Wide Web. It was also a creative time for hip hop. Public Enemy was reinventing the genre with a crucial vitality, the Beastie Boys and De La Soul were forging new ground with literally hundreds of samples, and there were powerful statements being made by Eric B. and Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest and Ice Cube. Meanwhile, Digital Underground was bringing the fun and inventiveness of Parliament Funkadelic to hip hop.
Formed in 1987 in Oakland by Gregory "Shock G" Jacobs, the group took a decidedly nonserious view of things. The group's debut was 1990's Sex Packets, a concept album about "GSRA" (aka Genetic Suppression Relief Antidotes), a government-designed drug that comes in a condom-shaped packet that provides the user with a satisfying sexual experience. The second single was "The Humpty Dance," which featured Shock G as his alter ego Humpty Hump, rapping about his sexual prowess. Humpty's back story was he was a singer who burned his nose in an accident with a deep fryer, which led him to wear a fake Groucho Marx nose and a raccoon hat.
"All right, stop whatcha doin' 'cause I'm about to ruin/The image and the style that ya used to/I look funny, but yo, I'm makin' money, see/So yo, world I hope you're ready for me/Now gather round, I'm the new fool in town/And my sound's laid down by the Underground/I drink up all the Henessesey that ya go on ya shelf/So let me just introduce myself/My name is Humpty, pronounced with an Umpty/Yo ladies, oh, how I like to funk thee/And all the rappers in the top 10/Please allow me to bump thee/I'm steppin' tall, y'all and just like Humpty Dumpty/You're gonna fall when the stereos pump me."
Digital Underground leaned on the lascivious influence of George Clinton and P-Funk, not just through samples but in attitude. The song's swirling beat was created through a combination of samples of P-Funk and Sly and the Family Stone, while the vocal sample in the chorus ("Do me baby") was taken from the Parliament song "Let's Play House" (see below).
"I like to rhyme, I like my beats funky/I'm spunky, I like my oatmeal lumpy/I'm sick with dis, straight gangsta mack/But sometimes I get ridiculous/I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice/Uh, yo fat girl, come here, are ya ticklish?/Yeah I called ya fat, look at me, I'm skinny/It never stopped me from getting busy/I'm a freak, I like the girls with the boom/I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom, I'm crazy/Allow me to amaze thee/They say I'm ugly but it just don't faze me/I'm still gettin' in the girls pants/And I even got my own dance/The Humpty Dance is your chance to do the hump."
The song went to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Rap Singles chart and #7 on the R&B chart. The video was an immediate hit as well, with the charismatic Humpty Hump delivering the goods (and featuring a young Tupac Shakur as one of the group's hype crew). In an interview with Vibe, Shock G said the song was based on his uncle Tony Red, more for his confident attitude with the ladies than anything else.
Digital Underground released five more albums, the most recent one in 2008, but nothing nearly as prominent as Sex Packets. I picked it up on cassette not long after it came out, inspired by the funk groove. DU had many members come and go, but Shock G and Money-B were on every album. Sadly, Shock G died in 2021 of an accidental drug overdose at age 57. Apparently, the group continues to tour without him, which makes zero sense to me.
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