Rap with a german accent storming the Billboard Charts? No way? Way!
Real McCoy (or M.C. Sar & the Real McCoy) were initially a conglomerate of a couple of german D.J.'s who met in a club in Berlin and who decided to become successful pop-artists. Their first couple of tracks, released on their own label Freshline Records, went pretty much unnoticed, but funnily enough in 1989 their rap cover of Belgian EBM inspired hit Pump up the Jam by Technotronic (as M.C. Sar) jumped into the german charts and proved unusually successful for such a blatant rip - off.
In the early nineties they decided to add "the real Mc Coy" to the "M.C. Sar" brand to represent the growing number of artists involved in the project, and released their first long player, "On the Move" which for some unusual reason sold an astonishing number of albums in Europe.
For the next album they dropped the "M.C. Sar" so not to sound to rap orientated and open up a more mainstream market, and as Real McCoy they were for a couple of months the biggest thing in continental euro-pop, even cracking the US BillBoard Top 10. No other german dance act maybe apart from Kraftwerk and Snap made it that big that big overseas. Not bad for a rather ugly blond bloke with two background female background girls and corresponding big cleavages.
What was the music like? Well, it was Europop, but funnily, it was catchy. Catchier than your usual euro-sauce, catchier than Mr. President, Culture Beat or the other artificial groups mass produced in Frankfurt. There was still some bloke with a german accent rapping awkwardly over parts of the track, but you just didn't mind, as the whole production was quite decent and it was so bloody catchy.
Music you just loved to hate.
Of course they're still still around, probably touring provincial clubs in Poland and dreaming about another big hit, but they have left the legacy that since the nineties you just didn't have to be from L.A. or Sheffield anymore to be an international pop star. Some grubby suburb in East Germany would do fine, thank you very much.
Tracks to try out:
Source: http://www.danceartistinfo.com/realmc.htm