You know I love a scam, so here’s a hot 1990s music video scam.
There’s something so deliciously European about Black Box. A DJ and a beautiful singer/dancer (Katrin Quinol) and a mainstream version of house music. Most people know them from the song “Everybody Everybody,” but I prefer the banger “Strike It Up.” The dancing guys in the background seem ridiculous now, but I’ll bet you can’t take your eyes off the singer.
The problem is, she is not singing. The voice is that of legend Martha Wash, who you may not know but you sure have heard. She is on half of the Weather Girls. (I wrote an entire journal-length paper on “it’s Raining Men” that I may come back to one day.) You probably also know her voice from the iconic “Everybody Dance Now” from C&C Music Factory.
But once again, that is not her in the video. Like Black Box, Wash does not appear in the video in favor of a more conventionally thinner and attractive woman.
It gets worse: Wash wasn’t even credited for several other Black Box and C&CMF songs. After a settlement, she was given credit and royalties for her performances. Here she is finally appearing live performing a song that exploited her voice but didn’t want her as a person.
Here’s Martha Wash killin’ it on the hit formally attributed to Black Box:
Unfortunately, this is not the only time that they take another black woman’s voice for their singer to perform. Fortunately for me, I love the genealogy of a song sample. Their songs “Ride on Time” is a pulled-apart and reassembled from“Love Sensation” by Loleatta Holloway.
The Black Box song:
“Love Sensation,” by Loleatta Holloway
You may ALSO know “LoveSensation” because a sample also appears in Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations,” but unlike Black Box, Holloway appears in the video. It’s Holloway’s vocals that make the song, not Marky Mark’s rapping. If this wasn’t his first single, he would’t be this popular.
Although they did get their due, Black Box and C&CMF exploited the talented voices of black women but didn’t want them visible. I only found out about this years after the fact, but it sullies the Black Box songs…well not too much, they are still JAMS.
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