Ego Tripping Out

Infobox Single
Name = Ego Tripping Out
Artist = Marvin Gaye
from Album = Love Man (cancelled)/In Our Lifetime¹
B-side = Ego Tripping Out (Instrumental)
Released = September 17, 1979
Format = 7" single
12" single
Recorded = 1979, Marvin's Room, Los Angeles, California
Genre = Funk
Length = 5:13
Label = Tamla
Writer = Marvin Gaye
Producer = Marvin Gaye
Last single = "Anger"
(1979)
This single = "Ego Tripping Out"
(1979)
Next single = "Praise"
(1981)

"Ego Tripping Out" is a 1979 funk-styled dance record released by American soul singer Marvin Gaye, released as a single on the Tamla (Motown) label.

The song, written, composed, arranged and produced by Gaye himself, was a self-mockery of the singer's image and lifestyle. Providing a semi-rap at the beginning of the song where he sung "I got the baddest cool/could never be the fool/the ladies wait to get down with me", he later talks about the downside of being in the spotlight as he sung about his crippling drug abuse: "cause the toot and the smoke won't fulfill the need".

The song, while not making it to the "Billboard" Hot 100, still made the R&B charts, peaking at #17. It would be Marvin's last Top 40 Billboard single at least on the R&B singles chart until 1981's "Praise".

Credits

*All vocals by Marvin Gaye
*Instrumentation by assorted musicians:
**Guitars by Gordon Banks_ (musician)
**Drums, piano, keyboard and synthesizers by Marvin Gaye
**Saxophones by assorted musicians
**Bass by Frank Blair

*¹ Single was later included in a 1994 re-release of "In Our Lifetime" and a 2007 re-release deluxe edition featured different alternate mixes for the sessions of "In Our Lifetime" as well as the original "Love Man" single of it.