"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" is the first single from Whitney Houston's second studio album Whitney. It was produced by Narada Michael Walden, and written by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam of the band Boy Meets Girl, who had previously written the number-one Whitney Houston hit "How Will I Know." The original arrangement was more of a country tune, but was transformed by Walden to make it a dance song.

The song received mixed reviews from critics, who compared the musical arrangement to her own "How Will I Know" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." The song won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 30th Grammy Awards. The single was a commercial success, topping the charts in 13 countries including Australia, Italy, Germany and the UK. In the US, it became her fourth consecutive number one single and sold over one million copies, making it her biggest hit in that country at the time. It was eventually surpassed by her version of "I Will Always Love You", five years later in 1992.

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody" was written by George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, who wrote Houston's 1985 song "How Will I Know." "How Will I Know" became successful, and as a result, they were asked to come up with another song for Houston's then-new album. Originally the song that gave Merrill and Rubicam their British top ten success as Boy Meets Girl, "Waiting For a Star to Fall" was intended by the duo to be a song for Houston. The duo sent it to Arista Records, but they passed on it citing it was not suitable for Houston. Undeterred by this minor setback, the pair continued working on finding a song that would be ideal for Houston, and were inspired to come up with "I Wanna Dance with Somebody." Later on, Rubicam explained the idea behind the song:

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