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Shake! was the fifth and final single to be released from Prince’s twelfth album Graffiti Bridge, and, like the song Shake!, the single was credited only to The Time. It was released four and a half months after the album. The Time had already disbanded for over two months when this single was released.
The single also contained a remix of The Latest Fashion, which was also taken from Graffiti Bridge.
Interestingly, the Boom Mix version of Shake! included on the maxi-single contains vocals by Levi Seacer, Jr. and samples from songs of the Graffiti Bridge album (Release It, Graffiti Bridge, The Latest Fashion, Shake! and We Can Funk). This technique of introducing the album on a track was also used for 2 Whom It May Concern in 1992 (and to some degree on the Dance Remix of Let’s Work in 1982). Both tracks (and 7) use samples of a man laughing that comes from Simon Harris’ "Beats, Breaks & Scratches" series (namely Evil Laugh from fourth volume). This laugh sample on 2 Whom It May Concern and 7 is therefore not considered as a sample of the Boom Mix of Shake!. The backing-music used for the Boom Mix also comes from this collection (100 BPM - Ruff Loop) and is actually a looped sample of Average White Band and Ben E. King’s 1977 song A Star In The Ghetto. Other vocals samples from this series (volumes 3 and 4) were also used for the Extended Mix of Shake!.
Both the Boom Mix and the Battle Mix also contain a dialogue scene (between Prince and The Time members) lifted from the Graffiti Bridge movie.
Morris Hayes stated in a 1994 interview with Q Magazine that it was while contributing to one of the remixes of Shake! for this release that he was asked by Prince to record with him. This release marks the first appearance by Morris Hayes on a Prince release, therefore, although his contribution is uncredited, and it is unclear on which track he appears.
The single failed to enter the charts.
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1990: Something So Strong ◄
