Little attention was given to the song at the time of its release in the summer of 1970. However, by a full decade later, hip-hop artists began sampling parts of the song, mainly McCullogh's horn parts including the famous screeching intro and the first horn break that occurred in the middle of the song. Also ironically, Brown credited himself and other members of the J.B.'s with writing the song. While Brown and some of the bandmates wrote their own parts, the Isley Brothers' name were left off of credit for "The Grunt", similar to Marva Whitney's recording of "It's My Thing", in which was a response song to "It's Your Thing" and Brown's song "My Thang" interpolating the melody from the same song.