High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "Theme from Shaft", written and recorded by Isaac Hayes in 1971, is the soul and funk-styled theme song to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, Shaft. 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 (at the time owned by Paramount Pictures, which later released the 2000 version of Shaft). "Theme from Shaft" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in November 1971. The song was also well-received by adult audiences, reaching number six on Billboard`s Easy Listening (later Adult Contemporary) chart.