Lou Bega
If your name is Angela, Pamela, Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary or Jessica, you were considered one of the luckiest (and coolest and most desirable) ladies in the English-speaking world back in 1999. You and German-Italian-Ugandan mambo singer Lou Bega, ladies, were going to touch the sky. The famous ‘Mambo No. 5″, which was actually a cover of an instrumental track released in 1949, was a worldwide hit. It reached number one on charts in both Australia and the United Kingdom– actually, it topped pretty much every chart in Europe, and even stayed at number one in France for a whopping twenty weeks. In the United States, “Mambo No. 5” reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. And nine months later, there were a ton of infants named Angela, Pamela, Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary and Jessica. If you have a sixteen-year-old daughter, we probably just said her name. And the names of all her female classmates. Lou Bega, what have you done?
Though “Mambo No. 5” was the only track that got a lot of play in the United States, but several other tracks charted pretty well overseas. If you lived in Europe, you probably heard “I Got A Girl”, “Tricky Tricky”, and “Mambo Mambo”. Unsurprisingly, his second album didn’t contain any worldwide hits. While he was off singing “Just a Gigolo”, we were still jumping up and down and moving all around. Shaking our head to the sound, putting our hands on the ground…
If you live in the States, it probably seems like Lou Bega fell off the face of the Earth, leaving behind a bunch of teen Pamelas. He didn’t give up despite the many times he was stamped as a one-hit wonder– in 2005, he released an updated version of his hit song called “Return of A Little Bit (Mambo No. 2005)”, which deserves a shout-out for a clever title. But we promise Lou Bega is still living. Currently, he lives in Berlin, Germany. He’s released a steady stream of albums which were modestly successful in Europe, including his latest German release, 2013’s “Give It Up”. As far as we know, he isn’t currently touring.
As of today, there are no immediate plans for another release, but we (along with the Monicas and Marys and Jessicas Ericas and Tinas of the world) will never stop jumping up from the couch to dance obnoxiously when “Mambo No. 5” comes on the radio.
