"Pass the Dutchie" was a song recorded by the British group Musical Youth from their 1982 album The Youth of Today. It was a major hit, holding the number one position on the UK singles charts for three weeks in September and October 1982.

Background

The song was a cover version of the song "Pass the Kouchie" by The Mighty Diamonds, which deals with the recreational use of cannabis, "kouchie" being slang for a cannabis pipe. For the cover version, the song's title was bowdlerized to "Pass the Dutchie", and all obvious drug references were removed from the lyrics; e. g., when the original croons "How does it feel when you got no herb?", the cover version refers to "food" instead.

The song was first championed by radio DJ John Peel and became an instant hit when it was picked up by MCA Records in September 1982. It debuted at #26 on the chart and rose to #1 the following week, one of a handful of records to have risen to the top spot from outside the top 20. In February of the following year, it reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the USA. The song also scored a top 5 success in the Norwegian Fantastik 50 chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies worldwide. The video, shot partly on the banks of the Thames River in London, across from the Palace of Westminster, was one of the first by black artists to get airplay on MTV.

"Pass the Dutchie" was covered by the ska band Buck-O-Nine.

The song was sampled by rap group Public Enemy for the song Revolutionary Generation on their album Fear Of A Black Planet.

Also, the song was sampled by the American rapper Cam'ron and it was named as the original.The three first sentences of the song have been sampled by the french house band Superfunk in their song "The young MC" (on their album Hold up').

The song is referenced lyrically on Beck's 1998 album Odelay in the song "Where It's At".

The song was used in the soundtrack of the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer.

There is a vocal interpolation of the song in Rah Digga's "Imperial" from the 2000 album, Dirty Harriet.

In 2005, the song has been covered by Dezil' in French-language under the title "Laisse tomber les filles (qui se maquillent)", and peaked at #13 in France and #47 in Switzerland.

The song was sampled in the Black Eyed Peas song "Dum Diddly" from their album Monkey Business.

In May of 2009, Los Angeles based music duo LOONER released "Dutchie,” their laid back version of the song which lyrically references the main chorus of the original.

Chart positions

Chart (1982)	Peak position
Australia Singles Chart	1
Dutch Singles Chart	1
Swiss Singles Chart	1
UK Singles Chart	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	10

Legacy

• The Canadian hit teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, which is known for naming each episode after an 80s hit song, named a Season 7 episode after this song, about the use of medicinal marijuana.
• In the Simpsons episode, Thirty Minutes over Tokyo, Homer makes a reference to the song when he suggested Jamaica for the family in saying that he "wants to pass the Dutchie on the left hand side".

References

1. Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th Edition (Billboard Publications)
2. "Laisse tomber les filles (qui se maquillent)", French and Swiss Singles Charts Lescharts.com (Retrieved October 2, 2008)