Chocolate Puma are a DJ and music production duo from Haarlem, North Holland, consisting of René ter Horst ("DJ Zki") and Gaston Steenkist ("Dobre"). Their stage names include "Zki & Dobre", "The Good Men", and "The Goodmen".
Zki & Dobre have produced dance music under various group names since the early 1990s. Their most notable productions are "Give It Up" (1993) credited to The Good Men, "I Wanna Be U" (2001) credited to Chocolate Puma, and "Who Do You Love Now?" (2001) credited to Riva, and featuring Dannii Minogue. They also founded their own record label, Pssst Music.
As the Goodmen, their most notable production was "Give It Up", a 1993 house music track based upon samba styled percussion and the simple, repeating vocal line of the song title. The percussion was inspired by a Sérgio Mendes recording.
The song rose to #1 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1993 and made a brief appearance on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #71. When re-released in late 1993, "Give It Up" reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Give It Up" is a song by Dutch musical duo Chocolate Puma performing under the name "the Good Men", or alternatively, "the Goodmen". It samples "Fanfarra (Cabua-Le-Le)" and "Magalenha" by Sérgio Mendes and "I Need You Now" by Sinnamon. Released as Chocolate Puma's debut single on 26 July 1993, the song became a chart hit in 1993, peaking atop the American and Canadian dance charts and reaching the top 10 in several European nations. In 1995, Simply Red sampled "Give It Up" for their UK number-one hit "Fairground".
Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "The import buzz on this one has been positively deafening. Mostly instrumental track is a curious but pleasing mixture of African rhythms and high school drill-team drumming." He added, "Cushiony synth pads provide a slight ambience that will add drama to just about any dance floor. Fun and quirky track has all the elements and cool sound effects needed for a radio edit that would be juicy for top 40 and crossover formats." Music writer and columnist James Masterton said, "One of the quirkier dance records around at the moment, for the first minute or so consisting of nothing more than a synthesised drum beat, makes a good climb this week and given the right amount of exposure may well progress into the 20 next week."
Maria Jimenez from Music & Media declared it as an "percussive masterpiece". Andy Beevers from Music Week noted, "Originally out on Fresh Fruit, this top tune is already an underground favourite, mainly because of its mad carnival-style percussion intro and attention-grabbing vocal samples. It now has major label backing and is destined for bigger things." James Hamilton from the magazine's RM Dance Update described it as a "snare drums tapped then Brazilian, Oriental and other rhythms driven fantastically powerful 124.7bpm surging percussive leaper".
Commercially, "Give It Up" reached number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1993 and made a brief appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 71. After being re-released in late 1993, it reached number five on the UK Singles Chart. The song also reached the top 10 in Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands.
American DJ, record producer, remixer and songwriter Armand van Helden picked "Give It Up" as one of his "classic cuts" in 1995, adding, "Out of the more recent stuff, The Goodmen is the only track that hits you right in your face. There's nothing like it, nothing even comes close. When it came out it was destined to be a classic. In America it hit big and to this day - and it came out in '93 - it's still played out. Still records are coming out with The Goodmen sound and there will be records with that sound for the next 10 years - that's how you know it's a classic. When The Goodmen came out in America there was no record close when it was hot - people would go to clubs and wait for it to come on."
16 окт 2022
