Songoftheday 11/20/20 - Put me up put me down put my feet back on the ground, put me up take my heart and make me happy...
"Coco Jamboo" - Mr. President
from the album We See The Same Sun (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's song of the day comes from Eurodance group Mr. President, put together by German producers Kai Matthiesen and Jens Neumann in the early 1990s. After an initial single that went nowhere, original rapper George Jones was replaced by Delroy Rennalls from the UK, who joined singer Judith Hinkelmann and dancer Daniela Haak for their debut album Up'n Away - The Album in 1994. The lead single "Up'n Away" became their first hit, reaching the top ten in Austria (#6) and top ten in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland. It was one of four singles that reached the top 40 in Germany from the debut set. The album made the top-40 there as well (#37), while going to #4 in Finland.
The trio returned in 1996 with their sophomore set We See The Same Sun. The lead single, "Coco Jamboo", written by Matthiesen and co-producer Rainer Gaffney along with Rennalls, veering from the hi-nrg frenetic beats of their debut to a more swaying tempo with pseudo-reggae flourishes, as were hugely popular with Ace Of Base just a bit before (albeit Hinkelmann has stronger vocals, like a proto-P!nk). I still don't know what Haak brought to the group besides eye candy, but the trio landed their biggest hit with this song worldwide, and finally cracked the States...
"Coco Jamboo" became Mr. President's first and only American hit single, reaching the top-40 in September of 1997. The remixes of the single helped it rise to #17 on Billboard magazine's Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Switzerland, and reached the top ten in Germany (#2), Norway (#2), Ireland (#3), The Netherlands (#3), Finland (#3), Denmark (#4), Australia (#7), the UK (#8), and New Zealand (#9). It also got to #28 in France and #37 in Canada. The We See The Same Sun album, which went to #1 in Finland and Hungary and #16 in Germany, failed to make the Billboard 200 sales chart in the U.S.
Follow-up single "I Give You My Heart" made the top ten in Germany (#7), Finland (#9), and Switzerland (#6), and was a minor hit in the UK at #52, was pretty much ignored in America, as was the third release, "Show Me The Way", which got to #28 in Germany. The former was a tossback to the Eurodance sound that didn't set them apart like "Coco Jamboo", while the latter was an attempt to ape the boy-band production with rapped lyrics that didn't translate well I guess.
The trio's next record, Night Club, again landed a top ten hit all over continental Europe with "Jojo Action" (#4 Germany), which tried to recapture the "Coco Jamboo" grooves (even with a title with the same cadence) just when that song was peaking in the U.S. in 1997, but America was way past Eurodance by the time it made it here. Their fourth and final studio album, Space Gate, was released in 1999 in Europe, with lead single "Give A Little Love" reaching the top ten in Austria at #8. Judith left the group, and a series of replacements have occured since. Their most recent top-40 hit in Germany was in 2003 with "Love, Sex & Sunshine" with singer Myra Beckhamm, which peaked at #23, followed by minor hit "Forever and One Day" (#51 Germany), the title track from their hits compilation.
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Here's the trio lipsyncing for their lives for Finnish TV in 1996...
In 2016, Romanian singer Inna used an interpolated sample of "Coco Jamboo" for her single "Rendez Vous", which went to #12 in Poland and #45 in Romania...
and lastly, Eurovision Song Contest winner Netta covered the song on her YouTube channel in December of 2019 (how innocent were we then?)...
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