The Chakachas

Primarily recognized for the sexually suggestive funk staple "Jungle Fever," the Chakachas were in truth a collective of studio musicians based in Belgium. Under the leadership of Gaston Boogaerts, who handled arrangement duties, the group surfaced in the early '60s and captured a lighthearted blend of Latin music, jazz, and European-style exotica. Polydor issued the Jungle Fever album in the U.S. in 1972, by which point the musicians had shifted their core sound toward a thicker funk pulse. The album's title track, a raw stop-start funk instrumental marked by heavy breathing and orgasmic female moans, reached the Top Ten and stood as the group's lone American hit. "Jungle Fever" resonated more with dance-club crowds than radio listeners, allowing it to persist through the disco period while undergoing frequent sampling by the hip-hop generation. The balance of the group's trajectory remains obscure, although reports have indicated that they or at least some members also recorded as El Chicles and accompanied singer Nico Gomez, who penned one of the songs on Jungle Fever. It is documented that they enlisted the New York Latin band Barrio to stand in as the Chakachas during an American tour launched after the success of "Jungle Fever."