Robbed hit of the week 2/15/21 - Los Umbrellos' "No Tengo Dinero"...

 

 

"No Tengo Dinero" - Los Umbrellos

from the album Flamenco Funk (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42 (six weeks)

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the Eurodance act Los Umbrellos, who were put together in Denmark in the late 1990s by Danish producer Kenneth Bager. Rapper Al Agami, who was originally born in the Belgian Congo, was joined by singers Mai Britt Vingsøe and Grith Höifeldt to form the trio. Their first (and only) hit record was "No Tengo Dinero" ("I'm Broke"), which grabs its entire melody from the 60s pop hit "Never On Sunday" written by Manos Hadjidakis, which made the pop top-20 in America twice in versions from orchestra leader Don Costa as well as the Chordettes. Tacking on new rhymes from Agami as well as a chorus from writers Jay and Richie Balmorian, the song was transformed into a Latin-flavored summertime vacation anthem for those escaping the winter cold in 1997, and Agami's Shaggy-like delivery did the trick...

"No Tengo Dinero" came frustratingly close to being a top-40 pop hit in America, spending six non-consecutive weeks at #42 between the end of 1997 and the start of 1998. Internationally, the single did much better, topping the chart in Austria for ten weeks from May to July, going to #2 in their native Denmark and New Zealand, #3 in Switzerland, and #5 in Italy. It also made the top-40 in Belgium (#18F), Germany (#20), the Netherlands (#22), Iceland (#24), Canada (#31), and the UK (#33). Their album, Flamenco Funk, released in February of 1998, reached the top-10 in Austria, but missed the American sales chart. Unfortunately, they were not able to follow that success up with any further singles, and they disappeared from pop radio.

(4/10)

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There was a second music video shot for the American market...

And lastly, in concert in Italy in 1998...