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Having the No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 — as LMFAO does this week with the infectious dance track “Party Rock Anthem” — is a special milestone for any act. But for LMFAO member Redfoo, topping the chart is especially poignant, as it means not just musical success, but a very special way to bond with his dad.
That’s because Redfoo — real name Stefan Kendal Gordy — is the youngest child of Motown founder Berry Gordy, the man responsible for some of the greatest songs and acts in music history.
“I didn’t grow up with my dad, or around the whole legacy,” Redfoo tells The Post. “I was post-Motown, so I’d always hear stories and wonder what was it like. The whole reason I started to do this was that I wanted to know what it was like to be on top, and to get to know my dad better.”
While he may have missed Motown’s Diana Ross/Jackson 5 heyday, “Party Rock Anthem” shows how Redfoo and his partner and nephew, SkyBlu (Skyler Gordy, Berry Gordy’s grandson), were born with music in their blood. LMFAO scored its first hit in 2008 with “I’m in Miami, Bitch,” which — in its cleaned-up version, “I’m in Miami, Trick” — became the theme song for E!’s “Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami.”
“It’s amazing, because it’s kinda changed Miami forever,” he says. “When you go there, you see the shirts, and travelers come back and they’re like, ‘I’m in Miami, Bitch.’ Now it’s ‘Everyday I’m shufflin’ ’ that everybody says when they see us.”
The popularity of “Party Rock Anthem” evolved from the duo’s realization that there were no dance crazes associated with today’s pop hits.
“A lot of people just throw their hands up and get excited, but no one’s really dancing,” Redfoo says. “So we made this dance break, and we needed something.”
They started out by playing beats while doing the Running Man, then found themselves doing the Shuffle. Soon, they were shufflin’ around the studio, which led to the song’s nowviral “Everyday I’m shufflin’ ” refrain. The more LMFAO shuffled, the more they were reminded of the 1920s dance craze the Charleston, which they began studying on YouTube, and soon integrated into both the song and the dance.
“That’s where the jazzy melody, the doo-doo-doo-doo-DOO-doo, comes from,” he says. “I’m fascinated by the dancing, the suits and the music of the ’20s. The tempo of the Charleston is almost the same tempo as this song — it’s around 130, 140 [beats per minute]. So it’s like the roaring ’20s again.”
When it came to creating the song’s video, the duo looked to both zombie movies and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for inspiration.
“The director kept on about this video zombie game he was inventing, and I wanted to do a future where there was no more walking, but everybody was shuffling. So we combined those ideas and came out with, what if our song infected the world and the world became chaos because they wanted to just dance.”
The song hit No. 1 in several countries, including Germany and the UK, but was stalled here in the States. That’s where the expertise of Redfoo’s music-pioneering father came in handy.
“The song had gone to No. 1 in all these countries, and he was like, ‘What about America? You need a publicist,’ “ says Redfoo. “I’m like, ‘Why? The record’s climbing.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, but no one knows you’ve been No. 1 around the world.’ So we got a publicist.”
Redfoo soon learned that his father’s winning advice is the same sort he’s been giving to legends throughout the pop era — legends that, now like Redfoo himself, understood what it meant to be No. 1.
“He told me that when Diana Ross had a hit, people said, ‘Go to your next single.’ And he said, ‘No, let’s keep the single and do something new. Let’s perform in a place we never performed.’ So he was telling me that, too. Ride it out, keep it going, keep gasoline on the fire. He’s really good at knowing what’s important.”