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About What's Going On
"What's Going On" is a song by American singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye, released on January 21, 1971, on the Motown subsidiary Tamla. It is the opening track of Gaye's studio album of the same name. Originally inspired by a police brutality incident witnessed by Renaldo "Obie" Benson, the song was composed by Benson, Al Cleveland, and Gaye and produced by Gaye himself. The song marked Gaye's departure from the Motown Sound towards more personal material. Later topping the Hot Soul Singles chart for five weeks and crossing over to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, it would sell over two million copies, becoming Gaye's second-most successful Motown song to date. It was ranked at number 4 in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 and 2010, number 6 on the updated list in 2021 and 2024, and at number 15 on its list of "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time" in 2025.
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