Songfacts®:

• "This Is How We Do It" gets our vote for biggest party jam of the '90s. It was a #1 hit for seven weeks in 1995 and has shown remarkable staying power, connecting with listeners decades later. The song was crafted to be inclusive - everyone is invited to this party.
  
  "I came up with this universal idea," Montell Jordan said in the Billboard Book of #1 Hits. "If you're in China, this is how they do it here. If you're from the ghetto, this is how they do it. If you're from New York, you do it like this. I think the reason the song was such a big smash with everybody was because everyone from different countries, gay, straight, whatever color, everybody has their individual way of doing what they do."
• The song is built on a sample of Slick Rick's 1988 single "Children's Story," an old-school hip-hop classic. (That's why Montell is flipping the track and bringing the old school back).
  
  "Children's Story" is one of Jordan's favorites. When he was in college he would improvise his own lyrics to the song, which developed into "This Is How We Do It." He wrote the verses as rap lyrics, then figured out how to sing them, giving the song a distinct flavor. Typically, a rapper would sample a track with sung lyrics, but this was the other way around: a singer sampling a track with rapped lyrics.
  
  The biggest rap hit from this era was "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio, built on a sample of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise." If you could find a way to merge a familiar sung track to a rap vocal or vice versa, you could cross over to a huge audience.
• The song takes place in South Central Los Angeles, where Jordan is from. The line, "Hit the Shaw cause I'm faded" refers to Crenshaw Boulevard, which runs through the city.
• According to Jordan, you don't have to be going to the club on Friday night to get your groove on to this song. "This refers to whatever it is that YOU do," he explained on Twitter. That could mean working out, fishing, anything that lights your fire.
• "This Is How We Do It" was Montell Jordan's first single. It's by far his biggest hit, but not his only hit. His next single, "Somethin' 4 Da Honeyz," went to #21, and his song "Let's Ride," a collaboration with Master P and Silkk The Shocker, went to #2 in 1998.
• Jordan wrote the song with his producer, Oji Pierce, who also worked with Kenny Lattimore and CeCe Peniston. Pierce died in 2006 at age 46 after a battle with sarcoidosis, a lung disease. Slick Rick is also credited as a writer because of the sample.
• Jordan's rap interlude in this song gives an overview of his come-up. He had been working on music for about seven years before catching a break when a Los Angeles DJ named Paul Stewart ("There lived a DJ and Paul was his name...") played his demo tape for Russell Simmons at Def Jam Records, who signed him. And yeah, Jordan is 6'8".
• Jordan is kickin' it at a house party on the West side in the Hype Williams-directed music video. Williams is known for his prolific career in directing hip-hop videos, and will go on to helm clips for Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Drake, and Kanye West.
• Montell drinks from his 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor in this song and gets kind of buzzed, but he shows keen responsibility by making sure he has a sober ride home:
  
  Designated driver take the keys to my truck
  
  The Designated Driver campaign launched in 1988 to get people thinking about how they would get home before it was too late. TV series like Cheers and The Cosby Show worked designated drivers into their storylines, but "This Is How We Do It" is the first time the phrase showed up in the lyric to a hit song.
• Montell Jordan later became a born-again Christian, so it's not likely he'll be reaching for the 40 and heading to the club anytime soon. In 2010, he put music aside to become a minister. As he explained on his Twitter feed, the decision is "a calling that's probably been with me all my life since I was a child. And I've known it. A lot of people in the business know it and have the same calling but that leap of faith is difficult." In 2013 he released a CCM single called "You Are."
  
  Another interesting fact about Jordan: he's crazy smart. He attended Pepperdine University in California to pick up a bachelor's degree in communications, graduating summa cum laude. He was a state finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship.
  
  In 2022, he showed up on the competition show The Masked Singer, and in 2023 he was a contestant on Special Forces: World's Toughest Test.
• James Corden is a huge fan of this song and was thrilled when Montell made a surprise appearance on his show in 2016 to wish him a happy birthday and sing "This Is How We Do It" with him.
• The song fades in with sounds of a party as we folks talking and having a good time. To get the vibe, Jordan invited a bunch of people to the studio and recorded them while they hung out and enjoyed the atmosphere.
• "This Is How We Do It" shows up a lot in movies and TV shows. Movie uses include:
  
  The Drop (2022)
  Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)
  Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (2020)
  Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
  Step Brothers (2008)
  8 Mile (2002)
  How High (2001)
  Multiplicity (1996)
  The Nutty Professor (1996)
  
  Abbott Elementary ("Teacher Conference" - 2023)
  That '90s Show ("Lip Smackers" - 2023)
  Euphoria ("You Who Cannot See, Think of Those Who Can" - 2022)
  Yellowjackets ("Blood Hive" - 2021)
  Fresh Off the Boat ("Family Business Trip" - 2015)
  Orphan Black ("Variations Under Domestication" - 2013)
  It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ("Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens" - 2009)
  Glee ("Acafellas" - 2009)
  
  It was also the theme song for comedian Howie Mandel's short-lived 2009 candid-camera-style TV show Howie Do It. Howie loves his puns!
• Jordan sings this in a 2021 commercial for The General insurance in a spot with Shaquille O'Neal where he makes perfect dough and has no trouble putting Ikea-like furniture together. "Turns out Montell Jordan knows how to do almost everything," Shaq says.
  
  He also sings it in a 2023 ad for Uber Eats that aired during the Super Bowl.