The Power

Snap! was created by the German production duo of Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti. They were the first to use sampled dance tracks augmented by a soulful female singer and a male rapper - collectives like C + C Music Factory and The KLF followed this formula. "The Power" was a massive hit; it was based on the rap from Chill Rob G's "Let The Words Flow" and a sample of disco singer Jocelyn Brown's song "Love's Gonna Get You," which is where the "I've got the power" line comes from. With the track laced and the samples in place, the German producers went looking for a good female soul singer to fill out the vocals and contribute to the rest of the album. They tried to get Chaka Khan, who had no interest, but she suggested Penny Ford, who was Chaka's vocal director and main backup singer. Penny took the gig, flew to Germany, and spent three days in 1989 singing lots of vocals for the producers to work with, and improvising lyrics along the way. In a Songfacts interview with Penny Ford, she said: "It was more or less them picking me up by the scruff of my neck like a pit bull and throwing me in the booth with a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of champagne and turning the mic on. That's how it happened. (laughing) And I'd just create. I just sang the first thing that came off the top of my head, because I didn't understand that music, and I didn't think I'd ever have to hear it again."

The first version of this song used Chill Rob G's vocals from an a cappella version of "Let The Words Flow," but the producers replaced him with a rapper named Turbo B (Durron Maurice Butler), who they found at an American army base in Germany. Turbo recreated Chill's rhymes and added some of his own, including the "I will attack" part and, ironically, the "copywritten lyrics so they can't be stolen" line. The song became a hit in Europe, and Chill Rob G released his own version of "The Power" in America. Not long after, Snap! signed a deal with Ariola Munich, which was a subsidiary of the mighty Arista Records, and released their version in America, which quickly trounced Chill's version because Arista had a lot more promotional muscle than the small label Wild Pitch, which had Rob's version. If you've noticed that some people got screwed along the way, you're right. Chill Rob G has said that he never got paid for the use of his words in the song, and because Jocelyn Brown didn't write "I'm Gonna Get You," she didn't get paid for her vocal sample. Penny Ford, however, did get paid and earned a songwriting credit for her improvised lyrics. That's because they needed her for appearances and because Penny is very astute when it comes to the business of music, something she learned from her family: Her father produced James Brown, her brother founded Kool & the Gang, and her sister was the popular singer Sharon Redd.

A massive hit in Europe, "The Power" was the first rap-based track to hit #1 in the UK.