As a club DJ of nearly 20 years or so, I was a baby DJ when Black Box hit the dance floors with their first hit “Ride On Time”. The track is recognisable to just about anyone that stepped foot in a dance club back in 1990 and is based on samples from the disco hit “Love Sensation” by Loleatta Holloway. The same disco song is sampled in “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch AND “I Don’t Know Anybody Else”, also by the aforementioned Black Box.
Black Box was big on looking good; even though it’s clearly Loleatta’s vocals in the track, they put this waify looking model named Katrin up on stage and had her lip sync the vocals a la Milli Vanilli. Back then, she was claiming to be the vocalist which made DJs and many of the gays rowdy because we all knew better. (By the way, she couldn’t speak English when interviewed after performing the songs). As an added bonus, permission was never obtained to use Loleatta’s vocals on “Ride On Time” and there were many lawsuits. Martha Wash also went through a whole bunch of stuff with Black Box (and C&C Music Factory come to thing about it), because they didn’t credit her for singing leads on just about the entire “Dreamland” album from Black Box and they claimed the waify woman could sing like Martha Wash too. Quick aside, I have met Loleatta in person and she’s fun and I know people that have met Martha and she’s fun too.
Because “Ride On Time” was such a good track, they re-recorded it with Heather Small (from the group “M-People” and then later her solo hit “Proud”) with just a hint of Loleatta’s sample (after she was properly paid) underneath the vocals to keep it familiar. When all was said and done, Martha Wash was paid and recognized for her work as well.
Anyways, I occasionally enjoy listening to some of these old tracks by watching the videos on YouTube and I still get angry at that fake singer up on stage claiming to be Loleatta/Martha/Heather, depending on the song. So then I write a snarky comment down where you’re allowed to do such things and then I move to a different video and my slight bit of anger subsides. I know it’s been 20 years, but deception doesn’t age well.
Moral of this story? Be real.
Here’s the re-released version with Heather Small on vocals and that waify bitch faking the whole thing. By the way, many claim that the waify bitch was first a man and then became a woman, and while I could see that, a transsexual operation would be too good for her.
