‘I Put a Spell on You’ is a clingy, deranged love song all about the one who never stops sending chills running up and down your spine. Mad love. The one who makes you want to spike their food with a love potion like korobela because you can’t imagine being without them. While Nina Simone makes the song sound like a good girl in love with a guy she simply wants to keep, Screamin’ Jay brings a whole new meaning, a whole new voodoo dimension, to the song. He passed out after the recording and the whole band was blind drunk. His version was banned on radio for all the suggestive grunting.

Screamin’ Jay was one of the batshit craziest people who ever walked the earth. The original shock rocker. He had a skull on a walking stick called Henry. I admire Hawkins. The man sure had character. He was tortured in the Second World War and stuffed a grenade in his torturer’s mouth on liberation day. And never looked back. His version of ‘Spell on You’ kicks off with the famous Darkest Africa lampooning bit that Pitch Black Afro sampled for his Amantofontofo song. Hawkins brings a strange psychotic passion to the song, which is what it always needed, finding the convulsive desire at the heart of it.

Screamin’ Jay wasn’t a regular old artist and this song says it all. If I was Jay’s girlfriend and he sang this song to me, my life would change forever. I would stay with him out of hot fear. Jay sounds how real wrenching love can feel.
We have samples and cover versions of every old song ever but nothing comes close to this for weird original energy. Finding this song was a miracle. Hawkins is one of those truly independent artists who did whatever they wanted to however they wanted to do it. Testimony to Hawkins’ everlasting brilliance is the fact that fresh shit is being born because of his catalogue. Fresh shit like Amantofontofo.

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