“This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan

Montell Jordan announced himself with "This Is How We Do It", his debut single and the title track of his 1995 debut album, and it broke new ground for Def Jam too, as the label's first R&B release. It's a toast to South Central Los Angeles party life in the hip hop soul style of the moment, with Jordan singing over a souped-up drumbeat sample of Slick Rick's "Children's Story" and the bass of Bob James' "Nautilus" worked in. He wrote it with Oji Pierce and Richard Walters.

On April 15, 1995 it knocked Madonna's "Take a Bow" off the top of the Billboard Hot 100, then held number one for seven straight weeks, a run it matched on the R&B chart. It went platinum, Hype Williams directed the video, and it earned Jordan a Grammy nomination. It's still his signature song.

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