Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite is one of those songs that doesn’t have one original, but a whole string of originals that were sampled. In fact, only the vocals on that song are ‘original’. Still all the samples mashed together did indeed create something genuinely new. I’ll try to go through them in the order that they appear in the song.

The opening is from a 1969 record entitled Music for Belly Dancing by (take deep breath) Bel-Sha-Zaar with Tommy Genapopoluis & The Grecian Knights. In the introduction track of the album Bel-Sha-Zaar explains some basic moves and tells you “We’re going to dance” (…) “and have some fun“.

Enter Herbie Hancock’s Bring Down the Birds from 1966 with it’s characteristisc bass-loop. On top of that comes a drum loop from Vernon Burch’s Get Up from 1979. If you fast forward Get Up to 2:23, you’ll not only hear the drum loop but also the crazy flute sound you hear later on in Groove is in the Heart.

When you hear Deee-lite’s singer Lady Miss Kier sing “I couldn’t ask for another“, the I is doubled with with I sung by actress Eva Gabor in the opening credits of the 1966 version of the tv-show Green Acres (“I get allergic smelling hay“).

Lady Miss Kier starts singing the familiar lyric “Groove is in the heart” and if you listen closely you hear the high popping noises from Ralph MacDonald’s  Jam On The Groove (skip to 3:53) from 1976.

Then before the next loop starts and a few times more in the song, you can catch the drum break opening from Ray Barretto’s  Right on Barreto Power from 1972. Just before rapper Q-tip from A Tribe Called Quest does his thing, the drum break is the opening break from Uptight by Billy Preston from 1966.

Lastly, right after the break you can hear an odd mouth-sound, that comes from Hateful Head Helen’s self-titled Hateful Head Helen (skip to 3:06) from 1989. There’s a few more samples in there, mostly little sound effects (the scream/horn at 0:39, the shout at 2:27, the 1-2-3), but sadly my trusted source in these things, WhoSampled.com hasn’t got all of them.

Combine all of them, add some vocals and there you have it: Deee-Lite – Groove is in the Heart