Kiss You Back

Album: Sons of the P (1991)
Charted: 40
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Songfacts®:

  • This mellow old-school rap number is about reciprocity: I'll treat you how you treat me. It's a playful song that fit with the Digital Underground philosophy of lighthearted fun.
  • This was the first single from the second Digital Underground album, Sons of the P, which was produced by their mentor, George Clinton. "Kiss You Back" samples the song "(Knot Just) Knee Deep" from Clinton's group Funkadelic. A lot of West Coast rap to come out in the next few years used samples and elements of Clinton's P-Funk output.
  • Digital Underground's biggest hit is "The Humpty Dance," which features a character devised by the group's leader Shock G called Humpty Hump. After that song became the breakout hit from their first album, Sex Packets, their label, Tommy Boy, wanted more Humpty material on the followup album, Sons of the P. Shock G gave them Humpty on "No Nose Job," but the label wanted more.

    Originally, this song was Humpty-free, but Shock agreed to insert him into the track, so he built in an interlude where Humpty disrupts the song, trying to turn it from tender to tawdry ("If you hold my nuts...") before Shock G cuts him off.

    This version, which runs 6:11, was included on the album. The single, which runs 4:25, omits the Humpty part.
  • The "shimmy shimmy co-co-pop" refrain was popularized in the 1959 Little Anthony & the Imperials hit "Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop."

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