Maizie Williams is touched that music icons are sampling Boney M.’s songs.
The 74-year-old frontwoman and founding member of the legendary 70s Caribbean disco group said it was “wonderful” that Lady Gaga, 39, used the “Ma ma ma, ma” chorus from Maizie’s band’s 1977 track Ma Baker in her 2008 hit song Poker Face.
She quipped to the new issue of Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “How can I not like it; it’s royalties coming our way!”
Maizie added: “Of course, when you have people like Lady Gaga sampling us, it’s a wonderful thing.”
And the star – who with Liz Mitchell, 73, Marcia Barrett, 76, and the late Bobby Farrell formed Boney M. – loves it when fellow musicians compliment the foursome’s work.
Maizie said: “I heard a very nice compliment from Robbie Williams who said something like Boney M. inspired him and I thought, ‘I loved you before, but now I love you even more!”
Boney M. split in 1986 after years of storming the charts because – according to Maizie’s interview with Startsat60.com in 2018 – they “grew apart”.
Maizie went on to form her new band Boney M. (featuring Mazie Williams).
Boney M sold over 100 million records and had two million-selling UK Singles Chart number 1, Rivers of Babylon/ Brown Girl In The Ring and Christmas Number 1 Mary’s Boy Child.
And Mazie said the icing on the cake for her career would be to perform at the legendary Glastonbury music festival, held in Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, South West England.
She said: “Glastonbury would be a wonderful blessing. I would love to do it – Diana Ross was there and she was amazing.
“And you get people like Dolly Parton too. So yes, it would be lovely to do Glastonbury.
“People think it’s just for rock and hardcore type music but it’s really for everyone.”
Asked about the secret to her, Liz, Marcia and Bobby’s success in Boney M., Maizie revealed: “We’ve stayed humble and just continued doing what we were doing.
“Our first producer knew exactly what he wanted to do with the group because we’re all from the Caribbean and he wanted a sound that represented where we came from.
“He produced the sound, which was original, and then added the bass voice, which gave us an edge to what we were doing.”
“We wanted to have an image that everyone could remember, so we went out and got costumes as we wanted to look different.”