1. w&w on 20 February 2008

Personally, I think Ele jumped the shark when he used the theme from Sesame Street, but he continues to find the occasional inspired oddball interpolation too - tiefing a Celine Dion melody for Signal The Plane pretty much takes the cake.

2. Gabriel Heatwave on 21 February 2008

The Celine Dion one worked well partly because it was quite subtle; it took me a long time to realise that was lifted, even though I’ve got a version of Celine’s original with Vybz Kartel on vocals (!). Another biscuit-taker is the Lambada-borrowing Hate Mi on the Aollo!! Aollo!! riddim. Crazy.

3. w&w on 21 February 2008

Good call on that Lambada allusion - of course, given the melody’s previous use by Screechy Dan in Pose Off, it’s not all that far-fetched (or inspired):
http://wayneandwax.com/?p=163

4. Tim P on 25 February 2008

How artists such as Ele manage to ignore the irony of this stuff escapes me. My favourite one at the moment is his take on Karma Chameleon… Much as he looks like Boy George, you’d have to assume that Elephant Man would argue very strongly that the similarities end there…

5. Gabriel Heatwave on 28 February 2008

It’s true that Ele’s not alone in using Lambada, Wayne Wonder also sang it in his early 90s tune of the same name with Cutty Ranks. But the way Screechie Dan and Wayne Wonder sing it is pretty straight; it’s Elephant Man’s drunken, pub- or football terrace-style delivery that makes his version crazy rather than the fact that it’s an unusual melody to borrow. 

Also, I’m not sure the Celine Dion one is any more far-fetched than the others, maybe even less so as it was a contemporary rather than historical steal. She’s huge in Jamaica and that song particularly was played at loads of reggae dances back in 2002/03 as well as remixed with Vybz Kartel’s vocals around the same time. I guess to us the connection between Elephant Man and Celine Dion looks extremely remote, but for Jamaicans it’s pretty normal to hear them side by side. Only yesterday I was listening to London pirate station Mystic FM and after playing Papa San, Lady G and Shabba Ranks there followed a half hour section of mainstream pop songs from the likes of Tracy Chapman, Percy Sledge and Hall & Oates. 

Tim - I agree, it’s odd how many dancehall/reggae tunes borrow Karma Chameleon (not to mention songs by Queen or Michael Jackson) given the artists’ views. There was a version by Singer J a few years ago too - here’s the new Elephant Man one, it’s pretty horrible though! 

http://maddecent.com/blog/2008/02/27/elephant-vs-chameleon/