Career
He is best known for his 1971 top 10 hit single, "He"s Gonna Step on You Again", on which 90"s band Happy Mondays based their hit "Step On". Kongos"s other big hit was "Tokoloshe Manitoba", which features on the television show Life On Mars and the Civil Defense soundtrack. His second album Kongos made the top 30 of the United Kingdom Albums Chart, but subsequent singles, "Great White Lady" (1972), "Ride the Lightning" (1975) and "Higher than God"s Hat" (1975), did not chart.
Having had success in South Africa in the early 1960s with his band Johnny and the G-Men, as well as a solo artist, Kongos went to the United Kingdom to pursue his musical career.
After one single, "Linda Loves Linda", Clifford returned to South Africa to join The Bats and Dokter moved to Canada and worked with Five Manitoba Cargo. Drummer Henry Spinetti joined and the remaining members recorded three singles as Scrugg.
After 18 months of gigging in Britain and Europe with his bands Floribunda Rose and Scrugg, and five singles later, he released his first solo album, Confusions About a Goldfish (1970), on the Dawn record label. He then concentrated on songwriting, and began to have major success in Germany and other European countries (Number 1 and top 10 hits).
He then moved to Fly Records with whom he had two hit singles – "He"s Gonna Step on You Again" (United Kingdom Number 4, May 1971.
United States Billboard Hot 100 Number 70) and "Tokoloshe Manitoba" (United Kingdom Number 4, November 1971). His second album Kongos made the top 30 of the United Kingdom Albums Chart, but subsequent singles, "Great White Lady" (1972), "Ride the Lightning" (1975) and "Higher than God"s Hat" (1975), did not chart. 1 on that chart for several weeks in 1976.
"He"s Gonna Step on You Again" is cited in the Guinness Book of Records as being the first song to ever use a sample.
Kongos continued to work in his own London studio as a record producer, sound engineer, television jingle and theme music composer, and songwriter, as well as handling the programming of the Fairlight Chartered Management Institute synthesizer on Def Leppard"s 1983 album, Pyromania. He gained notoriety with a new musical generation in 1990, when Madchester pioneers Happy Mondays reworked "He"s Gonna Step On You Again" into their baggy era defining hit "Step On", which reached Number.
5 in the United Kingdom Singles Chart. In the same year they also covered his "Tokoloshe Manitoba", for the compilation album, Rubáiyát.