| Papa Don't Take No Mess | |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | James Brown |
| Album: | Hell |
| A-Side: | Papa Don't Take No Mess Part I |
| B-Side: | Papa Don't Take No Mess Part II |
| Recorded: | August 23, 1973, International Studios, Augusta, GA |
| Genre: | Funk |
| Length: |
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| Label: | Polydor 14255 |
| Producer: | James Brown |
| Chronology: | James Brown charting |
| Prev Title: | My Thang |
| Prev Year: | 1974 |
| Next Title: | Funky President (People It's Bad) |
| Next Year: | 1974 |
"Papa Don't Take No Mess" is a funk song performed by James Brown. An edited version of the song released as a two-part single in 1974 was Brown's 17th and final number one R&B hit and peaked at number thirty-one on the Hot 100.[1] [2] The full-length version, nearly 14 minutes long, appeared on the double album Hell.
Like "The Payback," "Papa Don't Take No Mess" was originally recorded for a rejected soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Hell Up in Harlem.
Record World said that the song is "carefully fashioned from disco and pure blackleather funk."[3]
with Fred Wesley and The J.B.'s:
A piano solo, performed by Brown, is included in the longer edit that appears on the Hell album.
Steely Dan covered this song in the band introduction segment of their "Rarities night" concerts in September 2011.
The song, like much of Brown's catalogue, was sampled into many other compositions, most notably in Janet Jackson's 1993 hit song "That's the Way Love Goes".