The soft-rock Scots and the hardcore New York rappers have been mates ever since a riotous recording session got them banned from a studio. Is their friendship about to score them another hit?
It’s February 1998, and the now-defunct London Arena is about to play host to one of the most unforgettable pairings in the history of the Brit awards. Backstage, Sharleen Spiteri of Glaswegian pop-soul group Texas is getting ready to perform the group’s hit Say What You Want as a duet with an unlikely partner: Wu-Tang Clan rapper Method Man. But the performance – the world debut of this radical rework – almost doesn’t happen.
The show’s producers, who originally pitched Spiteri a duet with Smokey Robinson, have exiled Method Man to a remote dressing room far away from the big-name stars. This was, says Spiteri, still seething, “in case ‘anything kicked off’ involving this ‘scary rapper’. We told them, ‘If you don’t move him next door to us now, we’re pulling out.’ Minutes later, he’s been relocated next door to us, and the Spice Girls are in our dressing room begging to meet him.”
