Smack My Bitch Up

Liam Howlett built "Smack My Bitch Up" around a repeated vocal line lifted from the Ultramagnetic MCs track "Give the Drummer Some", in which rapper Kool Keith had originally delivered the words "Switch up change my pitch up / Smack my bitch up, like a pimp". Kool Keith had already been sampled by the Prodigy on their earlier track "Out of Space". Female vocals were performed by Shahin Badar, whose singing and harmonies drew on "Nana (The Dreaming)" by Sheila Chandra. Howlett first used a direct sample of Chandra's recording, but after sample clearance problems he had the vocal resung. The finished track also carried samples from "Funky Man" by Kool & the Gang, "In Memory Of" by Randy Weston, "House of Rising Funk" by Afrique, "Like This" by Mixmaster Gee and the Turntable Orchestra and "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine.

Released in November 1997 as the third and final single from The Fat of the Land, the song peaked at No. 8 in the UK despite limited airplay, spending 16 weeks in the top 100. It topped the charts in Finland and Spain and reached the top 15 in Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. Before the single came out, Howlett received three remixes of the title track, from Jonny L, DJ Hype and Slacker. He picked the DJ Hype remix for the single, gave the Jonny L version away on a free Muzik magazine CD, and the Slacker remix surfaced only on a rare white label set.