Word Up! (song)

"Word Up!"
Single by Cameo
from the album Word Up!
B-side"Urban Warrior"
Released1986
Genre
Length4:21
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Larry Blackmon
Cameo singles chronology
"Single Life"
(1985) 		"Word Up!"
(1986) 		"Candy"
(1986)
Music video
"Word Up!" on YouTube

"Word Up!" is a funk and R&B song originally recorded by American funk band Cameo in 1986. It was released as the first single from their thirteenth album of the same name. The song was written by band members Larry Blackmon and Tomi Jenkins. Its frequent airing on American dance, R&B, and contemporary hit radio, as well as its MTV music video (in which LeVar Burton appears as a police detective trying to arrest the band),[4] helped the single become the band's best known hit.

The song is in A major with a metronome of 112 BPM, but the chorus shifts to F-sharp minor (the relative minor key of A major).[5]

  1. ^ Jonathan Buckley; Mark Ellingham (1996). Rough Guides Ltd (ed.). Rock: The Rough Guide. Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1858282015. "Word Up" was funk's last stand before it was completely swallowed up by hip-hop culture.
  2. ^ Marsh, Dave (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. Plume. p. 266. ISBN 0-452-26305-0.
  3. ^ Roni Sarig (2007). Da Capo Press (ed.). Third Coast: Outkast, Timbaland, and How Hip-Hop Became a Southern Thing. Hachette Books. p. 100. ISBN 978-0306814303. "With number-one R&B singles like 1984's "She's Strange" and 1986's "Word Up"—released on Cameo's Atlanta Artists label—the city found its first major urban act of the hip-hop era."
  4. ^ "Cameo's Got The Word". grammy.com. September 28, 2011. Archived from the original on December 3, 2020. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  5. ^ "Word Up". www.musicnotes.com. October 14, 2002.