Got to Give It Up

Motown wanted Gaye to record disco, and he had refused, saying the genre lacked substance. He answered with a song of his own, first titled Dancing Lady and influenced by Johnnie Taylor's Disco Lady. The first session was on 13 December 1976. Art Stewart produced and engineered, and Gaye sang lead and played percussion, keyboards and RMI synthesizer bass, with friends and family in the room. His brother Frankie, his sister Zeola and Janis Hunter sing backing vocals, Johnny McGhee plays guitar, Fernando Harkness takes the tenor saxophone solo, and Frankie Beverly adds percussion. Influenced by the vocal chatter on What's Going On, Gaye created a party scene on the track, and during the bridge he calls out to the Soul Train host Don Cornelius.

Released in March 1977, it reached number one on the Hot 100 for a week in June 1977 and spent five weeks at the top of the R&B chart. It also topped the disco chart, reached number seven in the United Kingdom, and appeared on the live album Live at the London Palladium. Michael Jackson and Randy Jackson adapted its chant for Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground). In March 2015 a federal jury found that Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams infringed it and awarded Gaye's children nearly $7.4 million, later reduced to $5.3 million, a decision upheld on appeal. Aaliyah covered the song in 1996 with Slick Rick.