Songfacts®:

• Written by Curtis Mayfield, this was part of the soundtrack for the 1975 comedy film of the same name starring Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. The Staples performed all the songs on the soundtrack, including "Funky Love," "A Whole Lot of Love" and "After Sex." You might notice a theme.
• The song topped the Hot 100 for one week in December 27, 1975, the day before Roebuck "Pops" Staples' 61st birthday. It was the second of two #1 hits for the Staple Singers following "I'll Take You There" three years earlier.
• The song shocked the Staple Singers' gospel fans with its sexual lyrics over a sensual groove - it's pretty obvious what they want to do again. Indeed, Pops Staples had to be persuaded to sing his part. His daughter Mavis recalled to Uncut in 2016: "In the studio, Curtis said, 'Pops, this is your part…' And it was (sings) 'I like you lady. So fine with your pretty hair.' And Pops said, 'Curtis, man, I'm not gonna sing that. I'm a church man.' And Curtis said, 'Oh Pops, the Lord won't mind.'
  
  Me and my sisters wanted to hear our voices on the big screen, so we kept at him and said, 'Daddy, it's just a movie score, you're not leaving the church…' And we finally got him to do it."
• This was the #1 song in America when Time magazine published an article about "sex rock" songs the last week of December in 1975. Along with Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" and KC & The Sunshine Band's "That's The Way (I Like It)," it was cited as an example of the genre, which was drawing the ire of many activist groups that felt these songs were leading to unwanted pregnancies.
  
  The Staple Singers had been described as gospel, pop, spiritual and soul, but "sex rock" is not a tag they were likely to earn.
• This was covered by George Benson for his 1988 album, Twice the Love, and was also released as a single peaking at #56 in the UK. Seven years later, the American pop/dance vocal trio BlackGirl recorded a version which peaked at #113 in the US and also earned them a Soul Train Award nomination for Single of the Year.
• The song has been sampled by several artists including R&B quartet Xscape on their 1993 single, "Just Kickin' It," Ice Cube in the remix of "It Was a Good Day" and John Legend on his 2005 cut "Number One."
• This song's writer Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed when stage-lighting scaffolding fell on him during an outdoor concert in Brooklyn in 1990. In 1994, a tribute album was released called All Men Are Brothers: A Tribute to Curtis Mayfield. The album included a new version of "Let's Do It Again" with a vocal by Mayfield. This version was done by a vocal group called the Repercussions; when Mayfield heard it, he noticed there was no middle part where Pops Staples sang on the original, and he found himself singing along to this part. He decided to record this part for the song, and did so lying down in the studio. It was the first time Mayfield recorded the song.