Smack My Bitch Up (5:41)

“Smack My Bitch Up” was the twelfth single released by the British big beat band The Prodigy on November 17, 1997. It was the third and final single from the album The Fat of the Land. The song was highly controversial because its lyrics, title and music video were believed to promote using of heroin. The phrase “Smack my bitch up” translates to: “Request another to inject you with Heroin or get you high. The phrase does not mean to hit your girlfriend, nor does it advocate violence toward women as it literally implies. “Bitch” being slang for the main vein running down your arm in which heroin is usually injected.

“Smack” is slang for the drug heroin. Put them together and you get “Smack my bitch up”, in other words to inject heroin into your main vein in your arm.


The lyrics “Change my pitch up / Smack my bitch up” are repeated through the whole song, as can be heard in the sample below. The band defended the song, saying that the lyrics were being misinterpreted as misogynistic and the song actually meant “…doing anything intensely…” The song led to a publicised disagreement at the 1998 Reading festival after the Beastie Boys asked the group not to play the track. The vocals are sampled and altered from the Ultramagnetic MCs song “Give the Drummer Some”. The original lyrics, performed by rapper Kool Keith, are: “Switch up change my pitch up / Smack my bitch up like a pimp”. Keith had previously been sampled by the Prodigy in the track “Out of Space”. The female vocals in “Smack My Bitch Up” were performed by Shahin Badar.