Songfacts®:

• That phrase Sly Stone chants over and over in "Loose Booty" is "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego," the names of biblical figures. They show up in chapter one of the book of Daniel.
  
  The three are brought before King Nebuchadnezzar II and ordered to worship the statue the king had constructed for himself. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to honor the false idol, as they serve only God. As punishment, they are sent to the fiery furnace to burn, but miraculously emerge unscathed, as God protects them.
  
  It's possible Sly Stone was making an insightful comment on his resilience in the face of a predatory music industry, but far more likely that he chose the names because they sound great in a funk chant. Sly wasn't the first to put the trio in a song: Robert MacGimsey published a spiritual in 1930 called "Shadrack" that includes them in the lyric. That song was recorded by Louis Armstrong, Sonny Rollins, Louis Prima and many others.
• The song is about dancing your way to salvation, a common Sly & the Family Stone theme. It's not the first song called "Loose Booty." In 1972, Funkadelic released a song of that title on their album America Eats Its Young. In that song, the Loose Booty is a dance favored by junkies.
• The song was released during a very tumultuous time for Sly & the Family Stone. Sly Stone was becoming more volatile, and there was dissension in the group. The Small Talk album was poorly received, with "Loose Booty" hailed as the standout track, the one that sounded like the band from their heyday a few years earlier.
  
  Small Talk ended up being the last album with the main configuration of the group. In 1975, Sly Stone released a solo album, and then started recording with a different group, still under the banner Sly & the Family Stone. In the '80s, Stone dealt with drug problems and became increasingly reclusive.
• The cover of the album is a photo of Sly Stone with his wife, Kathy Silva, and their son, Sylvester Jr. They got married about a month before the album came out in front of about 19,000 people before a Sly & the Family Stone concert at Madison Square Garden before one of their concerts. A few months later, Silva filed for divorce.
• "Loose Booty" is sampled on the 1989 Beastie Boys song "Shadrach," which also does the "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego" chant. Other songs to sample it include "It's Hard Being the Kane" by Big Daddy Kane and Tie Goes to the Runner by Public Enemy.