Girl You Know It's True (song)

Girl You Know It's True is a 1987 song by Numarx, written by William Pettaway Jr, Sean Spencer, Kevin Liles, Rodney Hollaman and Kayode Adeyemo. It was made famous worldwide a year later by the German-produced band Milli Vanilli.

History

In 1987, Baltimore five-piece hip-hop group Numarx, which included Spencer, Liles and Hollaman, recorded the self-penned song Girl You Know It's True as their second single. Producers were Bill Pettaway and Ky Adeyemo. It was released on an indie label in Maryland and the following year on the British label Bluebird along with their debut song Rhymes So Def. They also released an album titled Our Time Has Come featuring the two songs. It didn't bring any significant success for Numarx and the members soon went their separate ways, including Kevin Liles later becoming head of the Def Jam label.

The German producer Frank Farian became aware of the song Girl You Know It's True in 1988 and chose it as the first song for his music project Milli Vanilli. In Germany and Austria, the Milli Vanilli version of Girl You Know It's True became a number one hit. It also reached the Top 3 in England and Switzerland. In early 1989 it was also successful in the USA, reaching number 2 and selling over a million copies. The accompanying album, named after the song, is the most successful German-produced album in the United States, selling over 6 million copies. The song and album earned Milli Vanilli a Grammy Award for Newcomer of the Year.

At an MTV concert in 1990, during the song Girl You Know It's True, the playback machine got stuck and endlessly repeated the beginning of the chorus. It subsequently became known that Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan had never sung themselves, but had only been on stage as dancers and performers. The actual singers had been Charles Shaw, Johnny Davis and Brad Howell, among others. Frank Farian disbanded the project afterwards.