Gonna Make You Sweat is the debut studio album by American musical production group C+C Music Factory, released in the US on December 18, 1990. Following on the success of contemporaries Black Box and Technotronic, Gonna Make You Sweat was a worldwide smash, reaching number two on the US Billboard 200.
"Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory, released in late 1990 as the debut and lead single from their first album, Gonna Make You Sweat (1990). The song is sung by singer Martha Wash and rapper Freedom Williams. It charted internationally and achieved great success in the United States, Austria, Germany, and Sweden, where it reached number one on the charts.
Robert Clivillés wrote and produced an instrumental track that was to become "Gonna Make You Sweat". He offered the track to vocal trio Trilogy, but when they declined to record it, Clivillés decided to use the track for his and David Cole's C+C Music Factory. The rap verse was performed by Freedom Williams and the female vocals by Martha Wash.
The music video showed model-turned-singer Zelma Davis lip-syncing to Wash's vocal parts. After discovering that the group was using Davis in the music video, Wash (who does not appear in the video) unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with the producers of the C+C Music Factory for sleeve credits and royalties. Additionally, the song used an edited compilation of vocal parts that Wash recorded in June 1990 for an unrelated demonstration tape. On December 11, 1991, Wash filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court against C+C Music Factory's Robert Clivillés and David Cole, charging the producers and their record company, Sony Music Entertainment, with fraud, deceptive packaging, and commercial appropriation. The case was eventually settled in 1994, and as a result of the settlement, Sony made an unprecedented request of MTV to add a disclaimer that credited Wash for vocals and Davis for "visualization" to the "Gonna Make You Sweat" music video.
Having previously worked with David Cole doing some demos in the past, Martha Wash recorded her vocals for "Gonna Make You Sweat" as a demo song. She was told that it was for another artist. Only Robert Clivillés was present in the studio during recording. Wash had to phone Cole for instructions on how to sing, before recording her vocals. She stated in 2017:
"I remember thinking as I was singing the hook of the song that it was set so high, it was like I was reaching for the ceiling trying to hit the notes. "Damn, this is high," I was thinking, basically screaming at the top of my lungs. I don't know what happened to the vocalist who they had originally in mind to actually sing the song or why they didn't use her version."
"Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" was reworked by French DJ Bob Sinclar in his 2006 song "Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now)", which became a hit in many countries including the UK, Finland and France where it reached number 3 and in Belgium where it topped both the Ultratop 50 Flanders and Wallonia charts.
Russian group Little Big covered the track for the soundtrack of the film Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and it can be heard in some of the trailers, and is featured in full during the closing credits. In Da Ali G Show, this was Borat's favorite song.
