--- title: "Digital Underground’s first hit ‘Doowutchyalike’ ran almost nine minutes, months before ‘The Humpty Dance’" url: https://badiyaa.com/digital-underground-doowutchyalike-sex-packets/ published: 2026-11-13T04:00:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-13T04:00:00+00:00 section: Entertainment publisher: Badiyaa --- # Digital Underground’s first hit ‘Doowutchyalike’ ran almost nine minutes, months before ‘The Humpty Dance’ Digital Underground's 1989 single Doowutchyalike ran 8:54, charted in 1989, 1990 and 2001, and paved the way for The Humpty Dance. Digital Underground’s first proper hit was nearly nine minutes long. “Doowutchyalike,” the Oakland crew’s 1989 single, clocks in at 8:54 in its single form, and it reached record shops months before “The Humpty Dance” made the group famous. It was the lead single from the debut album *Sex Packets*, written and produced by frontman Gregory “Shock G” Jacobs and released through TNT and Tommy Boy Records. The B-side was “Hip Hop Doll,” a song that later turned up only on the cassette edition of the album. ## A club record, not a radio edit A radio-friendly single usually runs a few minutes. “Doowutchyalike” went the other way. The album’s CD track runs 8:51, and the LP needed a separate 4:12 edit just to squeeze it onto side B. The first 12-inch pressing, catalog number TB 932, carried six versions, including a “Playhowyalike Mix,” a radio mix, an instrumental and an “Underground Like-Appella Mix.” The length suited the group’s sound. Digital Underground leaned heavily on 1970s funk, and Jacobs, working under the name “Rackadelic,” even drew the album art and cartoon liner notes as a nod to Parliament-Funkadelic sleeves. A long, loose party jam fit that world better than a tidy pop single. ## How it charted The single was a modest club hit rather than a smash. Its chart path stretched over three separate years: - **1989:** No. 79 on the UK singles chart and No. 82 on the US R&B/hip-hop songs chart. - **1990:** a remix climbed to No. 29 on the US R&B/hip-hop chart, No. 19 on the US rap songs chart and No. 20 on US dance singles sales, and reached No. 139 in Australia. - **2001:** it returned in Britain, reaching No. 27 on the hip-hop and R&B singles chart and No. 19 on the UK indie chart. That 12-year spread between first entry and last chart return is a sign of how long the song stayed in rotation. ## The warm-up act for “The Humpty Dance” Dates for the single differ between records. The *Sex Packets* album listing gives October 18, 1989, while the group’s own history places the single and its video in the summer of that year. Either way, it came first. “The Humpty Dance” followed in January 1990 and went far bigger: a No. 1 rap single that also peaked at No. 11 on the US pop chart and No. 7 for R&B. *Sex Packets* itself arrived on March 20, 1990. It reached No. 24 on the US albums chart and No. 8 on the R&B/hip-hop albums chart, and was eventually certified platinum in the US. “Doowutchyalike” sits at track nine on the CD, right after “Freaks of the Industry.” The group’s next release, the 1991 *This Is an EP Release*, gave a young dancer and hype man named Tupac Shakur his first recorded verse on “Same Song.” Our look back at [2Pac’s debut album 2Pacalypse Now at 35](https://badiyaa.com/2pac-2pacalypse-now-35-years/) picks up his story from there. ## Where the song turned up later The track found a second audience on screen when director Gina Prince-Bythewood used it in her 2000 film *Love & Basketball*. A 2003 greatest-hits set even borrowed its title, calling itself *Playwutchyalike: The Best of Digital Underground*. The group itself has outlived its founder. Shock G died in 2021, but Digital Underground continues to tour, with Money-B and Young Hump as current members. For more on how the East Coast answered the West at the start of that decade, see our piece on [Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest releasing classic albums on the same day in 1993](https://badiyaa.com/wu-tang-36-chambers-tribe-midnight-marauders-november-9-1993/). *Sex Packets* turns 37 on March 20, 2027, and its lead single’s original 12-inch still lists six mixes, the longest just shy of nine minutes. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Doowutchyalike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doowutchyalike) - [Wikipedia: Sex Packets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Packets) - [Wikipedia: Digital Underground](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Underground) *Image: David Corby, CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*