"(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue" is a 1929 jazz standard protest song, composed by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks, with lyrics by Andy Razaf. It was originally published by Mills Music.
"Black and Blue" debuted in the Broadway musical Hot Chocolates (1929), sung by Edith Wilson. Razaf biographer Barry Singer recounts that the lyricist was coerced into writing the song (with music by Waller) by the show's financier, New York mobster Dutch Schultz, though Razaf subverted Schultz's directive that it be a comedic number:
In the show, Wilson originally sang the song from a bed with white sheets, but the bed was removed after the first show due to the judgement that it was too suggestive.
The show also included Waller and Razaf's hit songs "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose".
The song is featured in the prologue of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man (1952) as its protagonist, while hiding underground in a basement with 1369 light bulbs, listens to the song being played by Armstrong and contemplates the "horrors of slavery" while smoking a reefer.