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Richard X was the brains behind the Sugababes chart-topping 'Freak Like Me' last year... On his new project Liberty X perform Chaka Khan's 'Ain't Nobody' over Richard's faithful instrumental version of the Human League's 'Being Boiled' - the result: the Top 3 smash 'Being Nobody'.People have been doing them for decades, but in the early years of the 21st century there was a particular fad for mash-ups, the ancient art of combining two previously separate songs. Perhaps the Internet made it easier to spread the word, though Richard X first made his name (under his previous alias Girls On Top) with a few bootleg vinyl singles. One of these was 'Being Scrubbed' which put the vocals from 'No Scrubs' over the riff from 'Being Boiled' so it wasn't wholly surprising that when he got a major-label contract in his own right, he'd return to part of the same source material. I'm not sure whether the change in lyrics was voluntary or whether it was just too hard to get permission for the TLC song, but either way the combination isn't a bad fit.
In fact it's rather too good a fit. Possibly because the parts are being replayed rather than sampled from the original recordings, the similarities are emphasised to the extent that it ends up effectively just a cover version of 'Ain't Nobody'. Which is something that's always marketable here in the UK, and indeed there's a version of the song in the Top 40 right now, but it seems to lose the original point somewhat.
Richard X also appears on: Now 56 [with Kelis]
Liberty X also appear on: Now 50 [as Liberty], 52, 53, 56, 62, 63
Available on: The Big Reunion
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