Year 8, Day 25

Hey guys. Today's song is What Is Love by Haddaway.

Photo by: Stefan Rittershaus

Everyone probably knows this song, but not necessarily because they know the artist so today you get a little bit of an education. So Haddaway is Nester Haddaway, a singer born in Trinidad, but from Germany. He's been active in the music industry since 1987, getting signed in 1992 and released this song in 1993, which obviously became huge. It was the lead single on his debut album released the same year, followed by a second album in 1995. He released two more albums in 1998 and 2001, but these marked a significant decline in popularity. He was featured on a German television show in 2004, then was part of a UK television show in 2005 which increased his popularity a bit. He released another album in 2005 and had one song that charted. In 2008 he collaborated on a single with Dr. Alban, then in 2009 a remix of today's song charted. It also became a sound bite in other music, used by Eminem and Lil Wayne in 2010. He released another album in 2011 and was still performing, but mostly doing so in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Siberia. He was supposed to star in a movie and this type of music, referred to as Eurodance, but ultimately that was never released. Nowadays he's still making singles, with some as recently released as 2021, and is living is Austria where he sponsors and also plays for a baseball team. So he's still around. If you're curious to see what his music was like after this first song you should go check out his other stuff.

Peace.