Powered by your inability to sit still when this song comes on.
Good morning, Sheboygan! Today’s 6:30 Clock Radio Classic is the song that apparently decided the early morning needed fewer alarm clocks and more dance floors:
“Pump Up the Jam” by Technotronic!
Released in 1989, this Belgian dance-floor missile arrived at exactly the right moment—when electronic music, hip-hop and house music were all getting together at the same party and nobody had bothered to tell them there was a dress code.
“Pump Up the Jam” was a massive international smash.
In the United States, it climbed all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it spent 24 weeks on the chart. It also hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play chart and topped the U.S. 12-inch Singles Sales chart.
The song reached No. 2 in the United Kingdom, while hitting No. 1 in several countries, including Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Portugal and Spain.
One of the biggest surprises about “Pump Up the Jam” involves the voice you hear on the record.
The female rapper delivering the vocals was Ya Kid K, whose real name is Manuela Barbara Kamosi Moaso Djogi, a Congolese-Belgian rapper. She had discovered hip-hop while living in Chicago and became an important part of Technotronic’s sound.
But if you’re thinking, “Wait a minute… wasn’t there a woman in the music video?” Yep. And that’s where things get weird. The woman prominently featured in the original video was Felly, but she was essentially the visual face of the record while Ya Kid K provided the vocals. The lip-syncing controversy became a notable—and rather awkward—part of the song’s history.
So, congratulations: you’ve just discovered one of pop music’s early examples of “Wait…who is actually singing this?”
Comments