Let’s cut right to the chase: You don’t need me to explain what Glenn Close did at the Oscars, because you already know what Glenn Close did at the Oscars. She did Da Butt. More impressive than her dancing, perhaps, was her absurdly detailed knowledge of the history behind “Da Butt.” She described it, correctly, as “a classic song by the Washington, D.C. go-go band E.U.,” and gave “shoutouts” to E.U.’s members—Sugar Bear, the Backyard Band—and “the whole DMV [DC-Maryland-Virginia area],” where the go-go genre has its roots.
The idea that Glenn Close would be intimately familiar with a song called “Da Butt” seemed too good to be true, and sadly, it is. According to the Los Angeles Times, she was told she’d be quizzed on “Da Butt” ahead of the Oscars, a fact an ABC executive later confirmed to Variety. (For what it’s worth, Close’s decision to dance to “Da Butt” was completely unscripted, the executive said. VICE reached out to a representative for Close for more information, but they declined to comment further.)
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Though E.U. performed and recorded the song, it was actually written by Marcus Miller, an acclaimed jazz composer, songwriter, and musician, with help from Mark Stevens, Miller’s former bandmate. Miller, whom Spike Lee personally commissioned to write “Da Butt,” didn’t watch the Oscars last night. He didn’t find out about his song’s moment in the spotlight until Monday morning, when he woke up to dozens of text messages from his friends and family about what happened.
VICE called up Miller to find out what it was like to see Glenn Close dance to a song he wrote about butts on national television, and to hear how it feels to witness the unlikely resurgence of “Da Butt” more than 30 years after it was released.
“Nothing could have prepared me for what happened [Sunday] night.”
Before we talk about the Oscars, I want to step back in time for a moment. How is it that you wound up writing “Da Butt”?
I got a call from Spike Lee. I hadn’t met him. He was one of those guys who just starts talking, like, “Let’s dispense with the introductory stuff: This is what I need.” So he said, “Marcus, I got a pool party scene in my next movie—it’s called School Daze—and it’s going to feature a bunch of women in bikinis, well-endowed. I need you to write a song called ‘Da Butt.’ I want you to produce it with this band called E.U. out of D.C. And I need it to be the dance sensation across the nation. Call me when you got something.” And then he hung up the phone. I don’t know what made Spike think that I was the guy to call for this song. But I was glad he did, because I instantly had some ideas.
I called up my buddy, Mark Stevens, who’s Chaka Khan’s little brother, and I said, “Look, I’m going to start on this song, ‘Da Butt.’ Come down in a few hours.” And so I’m searching around for lyrics. This is like 1986, 1987. You couldn’t go all the way in that era like you can now, but [the song] still had to have some fun. And when I came up with the lyric “backfield in motion,” that kind of set me on the path, you know: There we go. And then Mark came, and we started jamming on the lyrics. I had already written the track. We drove around Manhattan in my car just coming up with silly stuff. I sent the demo to Spike, and he said, “I love it. We’re going to record it.”
I know you were in the studio the day the song was recorded, and that you produced it. What was that experience like?
We recorded it in a studio in downtown New York. And Spike said, “Listen, I’m inviting the cast from School Daze [Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell, and others] down to the studio.” So we had the cast come in, and we put up two microphones. They were all in the big studio, just hanging out, and then we played the track. And they started partying to the track, and we recorded the party. One of the best moments I remember was when Spike said, “Oh yeah, there’s a dance that goes along with this,” and Spike got down and started shaking his butt. And everybody came up with their own version of the dance while we were recording and partying to the song. So the record comes with its own party, and I think that really gave it a lot of energy.
Sugar Bear [E.U.’s vocalist] got on the microphone, and he just connected to the song. He sang it like he’d been singing it for years. In one line he said [singing], “I want that butt, that butt, that big old, big old, butt!” I’m standing right next to him when he sings that, and you can hear me just howling in laughter. And we left it on the record. We left everything that happened on the record.
Did you write the part where Sugar Bear is just calling people out by name who have big butts? “Shirley got a big old butt, Irene got a big old butt”—that part?
That’s a D.C. go-go tradition. They do the shout outs. So no, I didn’t write that part. I said, “Come on, put the real go-go thing on there, Sugar Bear,” and that’s what he did.
So how did you find out that Glenn Close did Da Butt at the Oscars?
I missed the Oscars, I was traveling. So this morning, my phone just blew up and, of course, I watched the clip.
How did you react the first time you saw it?
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened [Sunday] night. I was sure that she was going to have to make something up and just bluff her way through it. And when she started kicking the knowledge I was like, Wait, am I hearing this right? And she’s so cool, she was like [begins impersonating Glenn Close]: “Oh, let’s see, it was E.U., Experience Unlimited…” And I’m like, Whoa! I was just cracking up. Not only did she do that, then she broke into Da Butt—she did the dance. I finally decided that they probably gave her some info ahead of time. But it was still so dope to see Glenn Close dropping knowledge about Sugar Bear. It was a really fantastic moment. And I think it was something that America needed to see right now: cultures coming together. Somebody who you would never expect talking about an area of music that you wouldn’t expect them to know about.
What did you think of her rendition of that dance?
I was shocked. I was thrilled. Delighted. Like, Wow, she’s actually gonna do this.
Your instinct about Glenn Close possibly being fed information about “Da Butt” was correct. She was told she’d be asked about it ahead of time. What do you make of that?
Some people [on social media] were writing, “Oh, man, she was fed that information.” And then other people from D.C. wrote: “Who cares?” D.C. just got a huge shout out. The go-go music scene is one of those really incredible music scenes that only exists in the DMV: the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area. There are only a couple of songs that kind of escaped out—Chuck Brown, who’s the godfather of go-go, had a couple, and [there was] “Da Butt”—but for the most part, it’s a D.C. staple. I know people who, Chuck Brown played at their high school prom, Chuck Brown played at their dad’s high school prom, and Chuck Brown played at their son’s high school prom. This is what go-go music means to D.C.
For what it’s worth, Glenn Close deciding to do Da Butt—the actual dance—was completely unscripted, apparently. What do you think about that?
I think it’s fantastic. And I’m wondering, did she do some research? Did she watch some dance videos, or did she just let it go?
I think she must have looked it up. It’s pretty unmistakably Da Butt.
I think America now knows that that was the original twerk song, 20 years before twerking became popular.
Now that all this has happened, do you think “Da Butt” might surge in popularity?
I think the song is gonna make a comeback. In certain circles, it never went anywhere. The song is 30 years old, but you can play that song today and it still gets the party started.
More broadly, do you think what happened at the Oscars might lead to a renewed appreciation of go-go?
It’s time for a go-go renaissance. I was at a go-go concert last year, and this music still sounds incredible. There’s a whole new generation. We need to check this music out, and I’m ready for it. I’m really excited for E.U. They’ve been holding it together all these years, and I’m really hoping that it provides some more performance opportunities for them.
It’s wild that decades later, EU is still active.
They’re doing their thing. If I do a gig in the D.C. area, Sugar Bear will show up, and I’ll say, “OK, Sugar Bear is here. You know what time it is.” And we’ll break into “Da Butt.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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