Music

Lou Bega insists he's still alive

by Tyler Munro

With darkness comes light, and while the sad passing of Lou Reed resonates in the shattered hearts of music dorks everywhere, a funny side effect emerged shortly thereafter: some people thought Lou Bega died.

This isn’t funny because the thought of Lou Bega dying is, but instead because hordes of people, most of them quite young and blissfully ignorant (oh how the world will eat them alive) confused one of music’s most renowned innovators with the guy whose one hit wonder was him creepily taking over a 50-year-old instrumental.

Pigeons & Planes did a great job at rounding up tweets from confused parties, which gave us such gems as “RIP Lou Bega – hope you can mambo in heaven” and “Mambo No.5 was a terrible song. I’m glad Lou Bega is dead.”

But Lou Bega isn’t dead, and the German—yes, German—singer wants to make sure you know of it.

Like Bega says above, it’s believed the confusion stems from a mistaken European journalist who mixed their identities up. Lou’s doing well, and you’d be well to know he’s been semi-steadily releasing albums ever since his breakout A Little Bit of Mambo back in 1999. He actually just released a new one in July, A Little Bit of 80’s, which is a brass infested cover album with renditions of songs like “Red Red Wine” and “Come On Eileen.”

In 2010, he released Free Again, which had two songs crack Germany’s Top 100, “Boyfriend” and “Sweet Like Cola.” Like “Mambo No.5,” both are very, very creepy. By all means check them out below. We also included “Mambo No. 5” as it was uploaded on Bega’s VEVO account. You’ll notice it’s muted: that’s because it violated a claim by the copyright holder. See, Lou Bega’s doing great!