The Voice on 'Everybody Dance Now' Wasn't the Woman in the Video — The Wild Martha Wash Story

You know the song. Everyone knows the song. "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" is one of those records that's been playing at every wedding, gym and sports arena since 1990. That titanic "everybody dance now" is one of the most recognisable vocals in pop history.

Here's the twist: for years, almost nobody knew whose voice it actually was. This is the strangest — and most satisfying — story in 90s pop.

The voice belonged to Martha Wash

The vocal was sung by Martha Wash, a powerhouse singer with one of the biggest voices in dance music. But when C+C Music Factory released the track, she was left off the credits entirely, reportedly paid a flat fee of under $1,000 with no royalties for what became a global smash.

...but the face in the video belonged to someone else

It gets stranger. In the official music video, a different performer — model-turned-singer Zelma Davis — appeared on camera lip-syncing Martha's vocal. The producers, the story goes, wanted a particular look fronting the hit, so the woman the world saw belting that legendary line wasn't the woman who actually sang it.

This wasn't a one-off. It was an open secret of the era. The Italian group Black Box had a huge hit built on the uncredited voice of soul singer Loleatta Holloway. The whole thing peaked around the Milli Vanilli scandal, when the industry melted down over who was really singing — except Wash's situation was the inverse: it was unmistakably her voice. They just didn't want to say so.

She fought back — and changed the rules

Martha Wash did something rare: she lawyered up and refused to disappear. In 1991 she sued over the missing credit and royalties. The case settled in 1994, and as part of it a credit disclaimer was added to the video — Wash for the vocals, Davis for the "visualisation."

More importantly, her years of pushing are widely credited with helping bring about US requirements that vocalists be properly credited on albums and music videos. One singer, told to stay invisible, ended up rewriting the rules so the next one couldn't be erased. Rolling Stone later called her "the most famous unknown singer of the '90s."

The takeaway

Next time that intro drops at a party, you can be insufferable in the best way: the voice you're hearing is Martha Wash, the woman in the video wasn't, and the singer who got hidden ended up making history. Credit, it turns out, matters — which is a pretty good argument for paying attention to who actually made the thing you love.

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Play it loud, then tell everyone the real story.

More wild-but-true music history in our Music Trivia series, with more 90s anthems on Videojam.