Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Tuesday 12-inch Flashback: ‘Wikka Wrap’

This U.K. record was a hit on American black radio... even though Americans didn’t get the joke.

The lead vocal (by songwriter Graham de Wilde) is an impersonation of Alan Whicker, a famous British broadcaster (pictured above).

Now... did Tom Browne get paid? That’s what I wanna know.

5 comments:

bklyn6 said...

Okay. I vaaaaguely remember this. There's no way I would've been hip to the Whicker reference, though.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ I always thought it was some British cat sincerely trying to be hip.

Anonymous said...

They were chompin down Tom Browne real hard, hahaha, but that track is jammin though.

J. John Aquino said...

Thanks for posting this and dropping a bit of knowledge on who exactly the song was parodying. I'm glad I can finally put an artist name and title to this elusive track. You know how long it's taken me to find a single ounce of info about it? I first heard "Wikka Wrap" during KMEL and KYLD's mix shows while I was in high school in the mid-'90s, but their DJs would never identify the tune. I always dug the "Funkin' for Jamaica" reference and the U.K. rapper (whom I always pictured as being a Tony Sinclair type, not this Alan Whicker I've never heard of before).

About a decade later, I tried to Google for it, but because I didn't know what the song was called, I kept typing "rico rap" in my search, so I came up empty.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ Hee-hee... Tony Sinclair...

Anyway, glad to scratch that itch for you, Jimmy.