Prince: Shake! Single (1991)

Escape
Jan 8, 1991
2 min read

Updated: Sep 23

The Time's "Shake!" was released on January 8, 1991, as the fifth and final single from Prince's twelfth album, Graffiti Bridge. Like the song itself, the single was credited exclusively to The Time. It hit the shelves four and a half months after the album debuted, even though The Time had disbanded over two months earlier.

The single also featured a remix of "The Latest Fashion," another track from Graffiti Bridge.

Interestingly, the Boom Mix version of Shake! on the maxi-single features vocals by Levi Seacer, Jr. and samples from tracks on the Graffiti Bridge album (Release It, Graffiti Bridge, The Latest Fashion, Shake! and We Can Funk). This method of introducing the album in a track was similarly used for 2 Whom It May Concern in 1992 (and to some extent on the Dance Remix of Let’s Work in 1982). Both tracks (and 7) incorporate samples of a man laughing from Simon Harris’ "Beats, Breaks & Scratches" series (specifically Evil Laugh from the fourth volume). Therefore, this laugh sample in 2 Whom It May Concern and 7 is not regarded as a sample from the Boom Mix of Shake!. The backing music for the Boom Mix also originates from this collection (100 BPM - Ruff Loop) and is actually a looped sample from Average White Band and Ben E. King’s 1977 song A Star In The Ghetto. Additional vocal samples from this series (volumes 3 and 4) were used for the Extended Mix of Shake!.

Both the Boom Mix and the Battle Mix also include a dialogue scene (between Prince and The Time members) taken from the Graffiti Bridge movie.

In a 1994 interview with Q Magazine, Morris Hayes mentioned that during his work on one of the remixes of Shake! for this release, Prince invited him to record with him. This release is the first to feature Morris Hayes on a Prince project, although his contribution is uncredited, and it is unknown which track includes his work.

The single did not chart.