[1] The theme was released as a single (shortened and edited from the longer album version) two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label.

[11] In 2000, Hayes told National Public Radio that he had only agreed to write and record the Shaft score after the film's producer, Joel Freeman, promised him an audition for the lead role, which was taken by a then-unknown Richard Roundtree.

[12] Director Gordon Parks also had a hand in composing the theme, describing the character of John Shaft (the "black private dick/who's a sex machine/to all the chicks") to Hayes and explaining that the song had to familiarize the audience with him.

[12] Hayes told Mojo in 1995: "As this was my first such undertaking, at the initial meeting I had with the producer and director in New York you could see the anxiety on their faces.

[12] Guitarist Charles Pitts' wah-wah effect was common in 1970s funk; the riff had originally been written for an unfinished Stax song.

The lyrics describe John Shaft's coolness, courage and sex appeal and Hayes' lead vocals are punctuated by a trio of female backup singers.

At one famous moment, Hayes calls Shaft "a bad mother—;" before the backup singers (one of whom is Tony Orlando and Dawn's Telma Hopkins) interrupt the implied profanity with the line "Shut yo' mouth!"

As late as 1990, censors at the Fox Network thought it too risqué to be sung on The Simpsons (until it was pointed out that the song had been played on television before).

Jesse Jackson and the Stax staff dedicated the win to the black community at an Operation PUSH rally.

[16] When John Singleton directed an updated version of Shaft in 2000, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Hayes re-recorded the theme for the new film.