The 1970s File Feature
I Like To Do It
I Like To Do It — KC And The Sunshine Band's 1970s Chart Persistence There is a version of American popular music history in which KC and the Sunshine Band e…
01 The Story
"I Like To Do It" — KC And The Sunshine Band's 1970s Chart Persistence
There is a version of American popular music history in which KC and the Sunshine Band exist only as the architects of a handful of enormous disco hits, the group responsible for "Get Down Tonight," "That's the Way (I Like It)," and "Shake Your Booty," records that defined the peak years of the disco era with a directness and groove efficiency that was remarkable even by the standards of a genre built on those qualities. But that version underestimates the sheer commercial consistency of the group led by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch: they were not simply lightning-strike hit-makers but one of the most reliable singles producers of the entire mid-to-late-1970s period, releasing chart records with a frequency that made them a permanent presence on the Hot 100. "I Like To Do It" is a snapshot of that persistence at work.
KC and the Sunshine Band at Their Commercial Peak
By December 1976, when "I Like To Do It" debuted on the Hot 100, Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch had spent the better part of two years producing hits with an almost industrial consistency. They had achieved three number-1 singles in 1975 alone, a feat that very few acts in any era have matched. Their Miami-based sound, which incorporated Caribbean and funk influences into a formula that was simultaneously Black in its musical roots and broadly accessible to pop radio, had given them a commercial profile that operated across demographic lines in ways that many of their genre contemporaries could not achieve.
The Sound of "I Like To Do It"
The track is a characteristic KC and the Sunshine Band production: a groove that is tight and forward-moving, horn arrangements that punctuate the rhythm section with well-placed accents, and Casey's vocal sitting comfortably in the mix rather than dominating it. The song's brevity of purpose is part of its appeal. It does not attempt to do anything that its predecessors did not do; it executes the established formula with the efficiency of a production team that had made this kind of record enough times to know exactly what was required. The groove is the point, and the groove works.
Twelve Weeks and a Peak at Number 37
"I Like To Do It" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 4, 1976, entering in the low 80s and beginning the kind of steady upward climb that was characteristic of KC and the Sunshine Band's best chart runs. Over the following weeks it moved through the 70s, 60s, 50s, and 40s, approaching the top 40 as winter turned toward early spring. The single reached its peak position of number 37 on February 5, 1977, just crossing into the top 40 before beginning its descent. The record spent twelve weeks on the chart in total, a solid run that maintained the group's Hot 100 presence across the turn of the year and into 1977.
The Disco Groove Machine in Full Operation
The Hot 100 in the winter of 1976-1977 was operating at a moment when disco was consolidating its grip on the commercial mainstream without yet facing the backlash that would arrive with particular force in 1979. KC and the Sunshine Band's records were among the format's primary commercial vehicles, and their ability to generate twelve-week chart runs with material like "I Like To Do It" was evidence of both the format's commercial health and the group's specific mastery of what made it work. Very few acts in the history of the Hot 100 have matched their singles output for sustained quality within a specific commercial format over a comparable period.
A Record in a Remarkable Run
Placed within the full context of KC and the Sunshine Band's mid-1970s career, "I Like To Do It" is exactly what it presents itself as: another well-crafted entry in one of the most impressive singles runs in the history of American popular music. The 167,000 YouTube views that it has accumulated speak to an audience that has found the full catalog and recognized that the hits were surrounded by records of comparable quality that simply landed at number 37 instead of number 1. Those records matter too.
For anyone who wants to understand what disco sounded like when it was operating at full commercial confidence, this is an honest and enjoyable representative. Press play.
"I Like To Do It" — KC And The Sunshine Band's singular moment on the 1970s charts.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning Behind "I Like To Do It" by KC And The Sunshine Band
There are songs that carry their meaning in the gap between what they say on the surface and what they communicate underneath, and then there are songs that locate all their meaning exactly where you find it: in the rhythm, in the groove, in the physical experience of a record that is designed to make your body move before your mind has had time to engage. "I Like To Do It" by KC and the Sunshine Band belongs firmly to the second category. The song knows what it is, understands its purpose with complete clarity, and executes that purpose with professional grace. The meaning is the groove.
Disco as a Philosophy of Pleasure
The disco tradition that produced KC and the Sunshine Band was, at its philosophical core, a music of intentional pleasure: a commitment to the body's capacity for joy as a legitimate and valuable end in itself. This was not a small or trivial claim in the mid-1970s, particularly for the Black, gay, and Latino communities that had built disco from the ground up in the clubs of New York and Miami. The right to pleasure, the assertion that joy was not frivolous but necessary, carried real weight in communities that had been systematically denied both by the mainstream culture that disco was simultaneously entering and challenging.
The Dancefloor as Communal Space
One of the defining social functions of disco in its peak years was its creation of dancefloor spaces where communities that experienced exclusion in the broader culture could come together on their own terms and in their own aesthetic. KC and the Sunshine Band's music, with its Miami funk roots and its broad commercial accessibility, was among the soundtrack of these spaces: records that held the dancefloor while also crossing over into the pop mainstream without losing the quality of groove that made them useful in the first place. "I Like To Do It" is a piece of that soundtrack, doing exactly what it needs to do in the spaces where it belongs.
Directness as an Artistic Value
There is a critical tradition that regards directness in popular music with condescension, as if the willingness to say what you mean without elaboration or metaphor is evidence of a limited artistic intelligence. This view misunderstands what directness actually requires and what it accomplishes when executed well. Making a record that communicates its purpose immediately and completely, that leaves no ambiguity about whether it is doing what it set out to do, is genuinely difficult. KC and the Sunshine Band achieved this on a remarkable number of records across the mid-1970s, and "I Like To Do It" is a competent example of the skill involved.
The Miami Sound and Its Influences
Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch built their sound at TK Records in Miami, drawing on the city's specific musical influences: Caribbean rhythms, Southern soul, the funk tradition, and the gospel-rooted vocal styles of Black church music. This combination produced something that was identifiably regional while also being broadly accessible, a groove that carried the specificity of its origins without being inaccessible to listeners who did not share them. The Miami sound that KC and the Sunshine Band helped define was a genuine contribution to American popular music, and its influence can be heard in dance music produced long after the disco era had formally concluded.
The Value of the Moment
Pop songs designed for the dancefloor live most fully in the moment of use rather than in the moment of critical analysis, and "I Like To Do It" is honest enough to acknowledge this about itself. Its meaning is immediate, physical, and communal: shared between the people dancing to it, present most completely in the experience of the groove rather than in any reflection afterward. That is not a limitation. It is the point, stated with the clarity that the best popular music always achieves.
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