Released November 24, 1973 Genre Funk Label Mercury | Recorded 1973 Length 3:08 | |
B-side "North, South, East, West" | ||
"Jungle Boogie" is a funk song recorded by Kool & the Gang for their 1973 album Wild and Peaceful. It reached number four as a single and became very popular in nightclubs. Billboard ranked it as the number 12 song for 1974.
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The song's spoken main vocal was performed by the band's roadie Don Boyce. An instrumental version of the tune with an overdubbed flute part and additional percussion instruments titled "Jungle Jazz" appeared on the album Spirit of the Boogie. The song is noted for the Tarzan yell heard at the song's end and the grunting, panting, and the scatting heard throughout.
Track listing
De-Lite Records - DE-559:
In popular culture
The song was used by ECW wrestler 2 Cold Scorpio as his entrance music.
"Jungle Boogie" and "Jungle Jazz" have been repeatedly sampled in subsequent popular music. For example, samples are used in EPMD's 1988 album Strictly Business, Beastie Boys' 1989 release "Hey Ladies", Madonna's 1992 top ten success "Erotica", Janet Jackson's 1994 top ten single "You Want This" and M/A/R/R/S' "Pump Up the Volume" in 1987.
The song was featured in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film, Pulp Fiction. It is featured in the video games Dance Central, Rock Band Blitz, Just Dance 2, and Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party. 24-7 Spyz covered this song on their first album, Harder Than You.
The "get down, get down" sample from the song's intro was featured in the American Dad! episode, "A Jones for a Smith". It plays whenever Stan Smith sees an object that he can use to score more crack cocaine (which he initially mistook for cold medicine).
The song is featured in the 2004 animated film The Lion King 1½ and the 2006 comedy film Beerfest.
In 2015, The Muppets released an online short where the song was performed by The Electric Mayhem and Sam the Eagle.
In 2015, Nathaniel Willemse released a version of the song, promoting the I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (Australia season 2).