You Know How We Do It

Last updated
"You Know How We Do It"
You Know How.jpg
Single by Ice Cube
from the album Lethal Injection
ReleasedFebruary 2, 1994
Recorded1993
Genre G-funk
Length3:52
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) QDIII
Ice Cube singles chronology
"Really Doe"
(1993)
"You Know How We Do It"
(1994)
"Bop Gun (One Nation)"
(1994)
Music video
"You Know How We Do It" on YouTube

"You Know How We Do It" is a song by American rapper, actor and filmmaker Ice Cube, released as the second single from his fourth studio album, Lethal Injection (1993). The song was released on February 2, 1994 by Lench Mob and Priority, and was a No. 30 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100. Musically, it is in the G-funk genre, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] and has the same kind of mood and feeling as "It Was a Good Day". [7] The song samples "The Show Is Over" by Evelyn "Champagne" King, "Summer Madness" by Kool & the Gang, and "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. [8]

Contents

Critical reception

Everett True from Melody Maker wrote, "This is more of that gorgeously smooth East Side/West Side funk that surely even the most staid of you are spending all your waking hours with by now, with sequenced vocals, gentle scratchin', a mutha of a rhythm track and a vocal as drop-dead-and-f***-me-as-you-fall cool as you'd ever want." [9] Paul Moody from NME named it Big Funky Single of the Week, adding, "A deep, oven-baked rhythm, a sample stolen from the wonderful "The Show is Over" by Evelyn Champagne King and then Ice himself, grumbling about how ...They wanna have me in stripes, like Dennis the Menace and mumbling incoherently about the 'West Side'. [...] A funk record for people scared to funk and a rap record for people who... yeah, yeah, you know. A monster hit." [10]

Music video

The accompanying music video for "You Know How We Do It" was directed by American film and music video director Marcus Raboy and filmed in Las Vegas, Nevada. It features Ice Cube and his crew taking a trip to Las Vegas in a convertible Jaguar XJS and gambling in several Vegas Casinos

The song first appeared on the soundtrack of the 1993 film Surf Ninjas . Mariah Carey sampled "You Know How We Do It" in her song "Irresistible (West Side Connection)" from her 2002 album Charmbracelet ; it features Ice Cube as part of the hip hop supergroup the Westside Connection, which also included Mack 10 and WC. The song was also featured in the film Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and Grand Theft Auto V .

Track listing

  1. "You Know How We Do It"
  2. "You Know How We Do It (Instrumental)"
  3. "2 n the Morning"
  4. "2 n the Morning (Instrumental)"

Charts

Chart (1994)Peak
position
UK Singles (OCC) [11] 41
UK Dance ( Music Week ) [12] 11
UK Club Chart ( Music Week ) [13] 48
US Billboard Hot 100 [14] 30
US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs ( Billboard ) [15] 21
US Hot Rap Songs ( Billboard ) [16] 5

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI) [17] Gold400,000

Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Related Research Articles

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O'Shea Jackson Sr., known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, and film producer. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1988 album Straight Outta Compton contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popularity, and his political rap solo albums AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted (1990), Death Certificate (1991), and The Predator (1992) were all critically and commercially successful. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of N.W.A in 2016.

G-funk, short for gangsta funk, is a sub-genre of gangsta rap that emerged from the West Coast scene in the early 1990s. The genre is heavily influenced by the synthesizer-heavy 1970s funk sound of Parliament-Funkadelic, often incorporated through samples or re-recordings. It is represented by commercially successful albums such as Dr. Dre's The Chronic (1992), Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle (1993), and 2Pac's All Eyez on Me (1996).

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