"Groove Is in the Heart" is a song by American dance band Deee-Lite, released in August 1990 by Elektra as their debut and lead single from their first album, World Clique (1990).

Hot New York City underground dance trio more than lives up to prerelease push with this sizzling groove'n'sample funk jam, kicked into gear by the sultry and charismatic vocal presence of future diva Lady Miss Kier.

"[19] Caroline Sullivan from Smash Hits wrote that the "ripping floor filler" has "got the samples and twiddly electronoises so necessary for dancefloor success nowadays, but there's also a hummable melody and sense of humour about it all.

However, it turned out that the 2,595 panel sales that both records achieved for this week of September 15, 1990, had been rounded up, with chart compilers Gallup later releasing the data that showed that the Steve Miller Band hit was indeed a fraction ahead, Deee-Lite having been narrowly defeated by 44,118 to 44,110 copies.

The accompanying music video for "Groove Is in the Heart" was directed by Japanese film director Hiroyuki Nakano and features lead singer Lady Miss Kier dancing (as well as other band members) against a 1960s psychedelic themed background.

'Groove Is in the Heart' defined the summer of 1990 on radio and MTV with its delicious combination of funk, modern dance sheen, and Lady Miss Kier's smart, sharp diva ways.

Add in guest vocals and bass from Bootsy Collins (a pity his hilarious video cameo wasn't represented here), brass from the original Horny Horns duo of Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker, and a smooth mid-song rap from A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip, and the results sounded good then and now.

If you were a kid in the 'burbs, they almost resembled a Daisy Age hip-hop group (the day-glo/flower-power look, the Q-Tip guest rap) as much as a house act (a strange urban subculture we had little access to in junior high).

[29] In 2018, Time Out ranked it number 23 in their list of "The 100 best party songs", adding, "In this tale of New York's anything-is-possible East Village of the late '80s, a trio of candy-coloured club kids – Super DJ Dmitri, Lady Miss Kier and Towa Tei – decide to form a band.

The threesome (with a little help from ringers Q-Tip, Maceo Parker and Bootsy Collins) come up with 'Groove Is in the Heart', a sweetly innocent percolator of a tune that, against all odds, becomes the worldwide club smash of 1990.

"[30] In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked "Groove Is in the Heart" number 233 in its updated list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, calling it "a collage across different generations of funkateers.

Alexis Petridis wrote, "If they’d had another song remotely as good as "Groove Is in the Heart"’s stew of samples, effortless pop melodies and interjections from Bootsy Collins and Q-Tip, Deee-Lite would have been huge.

American retail chain Target Corporation used the song, as performed by Charli XCX with Questlove and Black Thought from the Roots, in a series of 2015 television advertisements.