Songfacts®:

• The slang term "fresh," meaning remarkably cool (or is that Kool?) and original, was gaining traction when Kool & the Gang released this song in 1984. The earliest use of "fresh" in a hip-hop lyric was in 1981 with Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five's "It's Nasty (Genius of Love)":
  
  I'm a man that's fresh, huh, a woman's pet
  
  Hip-hop innovators Newcleus used it in their classic "Jam On It," which was popular in the summer of 1984, with the line,
  
  The beat is fresh y'all
  
  In November that year, Kool & the Gang became the first to put it in a song title when they released "Fresh" on their album Emergency. Around this time, Doug E. Fresh was also coming onto the scene. "Fresh" didn't go stale until the '90s; it was everywhere in the late '80s, with Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C. throwing it into a lot of their lyrics. There was also D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, who had their first hit, "Parents Just Don't Understand," in 1988.
  
  Kool & the Gang's "Fresh" was a big hit in the summer of 1985, reaching #9 on the Hot 100 and topping the R&B chart. The group was always in tune with the up-and-coming argot, and would insert it into their songs. When "get down" was hot in 1973, they made it the hook to their hit "Jungle Boogie." They wrote the song "Fresh" knowing the term was getting hot, and they even defined in the song, which is about girl who is "so fresh... so exciting to me."
• This song may have been a fresh hit for Kool & the Gang, but an early version was sitting on the shelf for a while. The group's lead singer, James "J.T." Taylor, borrowed the tune from the band he was in before joining the Gang. "But it was a totally different groove. When I played it for [drummer] George Brown, he changed it," Taylor told Billboard.
• The album's producer, Jim Bonnefond, brought in songwriter Sandy Linzer to help with the lyrics. Linzer recalled: "They had a title, and they wanted a lyric about all the fresh things that were going on in the world. I just changed it to 'She's fresh,' wrote the lyrics to the verses, and submitted it."
• "Fresh" was one of three big hits from Kool & the Gang's Emergency album, along with the rocker "Misled" and the ballad "Cherish." By this time, they had expanded their audience far past the funk fans that enjoyed their '70s hits like "Hollywood Swinging" and "Ladies Night." They had a few more hits before lead singer J.T. Taylor went solo in 1988.