Passion Fruit – Spanglish Love Affairs / X-Cell Records Audio CD 2000 / 497896 2

UPC 5099749789623

Passion Fruit was a Eurodance/bubblegum band. The original members were Blade (Manye Thompson), Dawn (Viola Schubbe), Pearl (Carla Sinclair) and MC Steve (Mario Zuber). The later formation was made up of the trio Nathaly(ie) van het Ende, María Serrano Serrano, and Debby (Deborah St. Maarten).

Named after the tropical fruit, Passion Fruit got their start in June 1999 with the Top 10 dance-pop hit "The Rigga-Ding-Dong-Song". The songs "Wonderland", "Sun Fun Baby" and "Bongo Man" followed in 2000 and 2001, all making the Top 40 on the German singles chart.

Passion Fruit originally sang "The Rigga Ding Dong Song", which was the group's most successful single. The single reached the Top 10 in 14 countries, including in Germany, Austria and Switzerkland and Top 20 in the Netherlands. It became a number 1 hit in Mexico. The original line-up can be seen in the single's cover sleeve and music video. Besides the main 3 minutes 25 seconds Radio Mix, there were three other mixes, the Extended Mix (5:12), the Plastic Bubble Mix (5:03) and the Munsta Groove Mix (5:41). Exactly ten years to the Passion Fruit release, the German pop group Cherona released its version titled "Rigga-Ding-Dong-Song" in 2009 dropping the definite article "the" from the title. The Cherona version on Columbia Records accompanied by a music video became a minor hit for them in Germany and Austria. The song appeared in the band's 2009 album Sound of Cherona.