“Pray” by MC Hammer

"Pray" was the third single MC Hammer peeled off Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em, shipped by Capitol in August 1990, and it runs on borrowed thunder. Its backbone is a sample of Prince's 1984 "When Doves Cry", the first time Prince had let anyone sample one of his songs, and a slice of Faith No More's "We Care a Lot" is worked in too; the writing credits go to Hammer, Prince, Roddy Bottum and Billy Gould.

Hammer produced it himself over a new jack swing groove, with James Earley and Felton C. Pilate II co-producing. The word "pray" comes around 147 times, more than any title had ever been repeated in an American Top 40 hit. It became his biggest Hot 100 single, stopping at number two, went gold that November and helped make the album the number-one record of the year.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.