Drop A House
DJ Demarko! feat. Heather Leigh West
This one’s got such a great story. Everyone who was clubbing in the late 90s remembers The Tamperer’s “Feel It” feat Maya (“WHAT… she gonna look like with a chimney on her?!), but what no one knew til recently was the Milli Vanilli situation that was going on with it. The actual vocalist of the track, Heather Leigh West, had recorded the vocals with a group called Urban Discharge in 1995 and had elected to credit herself only as “She” because of the conflict between the track’s severe message and her softer image. The track didn’t chart effectively because of its explicit lyrics, but then emerged again in 1998, edited and re-produced by The Tamperer, but this time crediting the vocals to Maya Days. The song became an international club hit, being placed on every dance compilation and DJ playlist for years to come, all the while visualizing a slightly built Black woman as the origin of this huge, raging voice, that came three years earlier from a little blonde White girl. To set the record straight, in 2007 Heather re-recorded the song as a promo with DJ Liza, and is now re-releasing it with DJ Demarko! as a two-part maxi single, and letting the sound speak for itself: how could anyone but the original vocalist sound identical to the original recording. Side note: Maya Days recorded her own 2007 version of the song, perhaps in her own defense, and it sounds like unplugged jam session in a Valley strip mall bar.
