Maizie Williams, the 74-year-old frontwoman and founding member of the iconic 1970s Caribbean disco group Boney M., expresses heartfelt appreciation as contemporary music stars sample her band’s classic hits. She finds it “wonderful” that Lady Gaga incorporated the memorable “Ma ma ma, ma” chorus from Boney M.’s 1977 track Ma Baker into her 2008 hit Poker Face.
Speaking to HELLO! magazine, Maizie quipped, “How can I not like it; it’s royalties coming our way!” She added, “Of course, when you have people like Lady Gaga sampling us, it’s a wonderful thing.”
Maizie, alongside bandmates Liz Mitchell (73), Marcia Barrett (76), and the late Bobby Farrell, cherishes the compliments they receive from fellow artists. She recalled, “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!’”
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Boney M. dominated the charts during their peak years but split in 1986 due to personal differences, as Maizie revealed in a 2018 interview. Since then, Maizie has kept the spirit alive with her own formation, Boney M. (featuring Maizie Williams).
With over 100 million records sold and major UK chart successes including two million-selling number ones—Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring and Mary’s Boy Child—Boney M.’s influence remains undeniable. For Maizie, the ultimate career milestone would be to perform at the legendary Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, South West England.
“Glastonbury would be a wonderful blessing. I would love to do it,” she said. “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.”
Reflecting on what made Boney M. such a success, Maizie revealed: “We’ve stayed humble and just continued doing what we were doing. Our first producer knew exactly what he wanted 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.”