Year 8, Day 157

Hey guys. Today's song is Ger Ready For This by 2 UNLIMITED.

These guys are a Belgian/Dutch group the have been around off and on since 1991. Currently it's made up of Ray Slijngaard and Michele Karamat Ali with past members including Anita Doth, Kim Vergouwen, Romy van Ooijen, and Marjon van Iwaarden. Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde actually formed the group and created an instrumental of this song in 1991, but wanted a rap on it, inviting Slijngaard to try. He did it, and added Doth as well, which they loved and agreed to work with them as the duo. This was their first single, and obviously was a huge hit. After five years and three albums both decided not to continue as after spending too much time together they were starting to disagree about the sound of the group and their lack of creative freedom so went their separate ways in 1996. De Coster and Wilde recruited two new singers for the group in Ooijen and Iwaarden releasing new music starting in 1998, but both singers left by 1999 after releasing an album. In the early 2000's there were remixes done and from the sounds of it another duo promoted, Débora Remagen and James Giscombe, but I honestly don't understand what was going on there. Slijngaard and Doth reunited in 2009. Coster refused to give them the right to perform as 2 Unlimited, but Wilde did join them to do some backing tracks. They started releasing music in 2010 as Ray & Anita and they did very well. In 2012 they were allowed to perform as 2 Unlimited again as well as release a remix of this song. In 2016 Doth left, being replaced by Vergouwen. They did perform in 2020 but hasn't been much since so I guess we'll see what happens.