Hotter than July is the nineteenth studio album by American singer, songwriter, and musician Stevie Wonder, released on September 29, 1980, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records.

[3] The album peaked at number three on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart and was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 3, 1981.

[6] In addition to performing, Wonder handled the writing, arranging, and producing of Hotter than July, which was primarily recorded in Los Angeles at his newly-acquired Wonderland Studios.

Michael Jackson, Eddie Levert and Walter Williams of the O'Jays, and Betty Wright provided backing vocals for Wonder's recording of the song for Hotter than July.

While a number of Wonder's previous works, such as Songs in the Key of Life and Innervisions, had received wide critical acclaim and had chart success, Hotter than July was his first album eligible to be certified Platinum by the RIAA, as Motown sales records before 1977 were not audited by the organization after they introduced the category.

Above the photo is printed "Martin Luther King, Jr." "January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968" (on two lines, centered), and below it appears a passage of text written by Wonder, which reads: It is believed that for a man to lay down his life for the love of others is the supreme sacrifice.

I and a growing number of people believe that it is time for our country to adopt legislation that will make January 15, Martin Luther King's birthday, a national holiday, both in recognition of what he achieved and as a reminder of the distance which still has to be traveled.

The top image is an aerial view of a low-lying urban area with a six-lane highway passing through it and thick smoke rising from many of the buildings on both sides of the highway—presumably a riot is taking place.

The bottom image shows a confrontation in an urban street four or five lanes wide between a large group of African Americans standing in non-violent defiance and law enforcement officers in white helmets who appear to be advancing with weapons.

Exceptions are the few songs about romantic turmoil ("Rocket Love", "I Ain't Gonna Stand for It", "Lately") and the socially critical "Cash in Your Face", which protests racial housing discrimination.

[16] Robert Christgau, that poll's creator, ranked the album eighteenth on his own year-end list[17] and wrote in a retrospective review that, while "Master Blaster" and perhaps "Happy Birthday" were the only "great Stevie here", the pleasure with which Wonder performed the songs was evident in "his free-floating melodicism and his rolling overdrive, his hope and his cynicism".