Kylie Minogue’s “The Loco-Motion”, Ghanaian Highlife music and Diana Ross’s “Upside Down” are the sounds guaranteed to get King Charles III on the dance floor, the UK monarch revealed Monday.
The king has joined forces with Apple to launch “The King’s Music Room”, a radio show in which he shares his favourite songs from around the Commonwealth, and beyond.
They reveal a surprising appreciation of disco, reggae and Afrobeats, and the songs which get the royal toes tapping.
“The Loco-Motion”, by Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue “has that infectious energy which makes it, I find, incredibly hard to sit still,” Charles said as he introduced the song from Buckingham Palace, photographed behind a desk boasting an “On Air” sign.
He also explained how he discovered Highlife music “and the urge to dance to that pulsating rhythm” when he first visited Ghana in the 1970s.
“On my most recent visit to Ghana in 2018 I found myself dancing along to the next track, which is by Daddy Lumba — who is regarded by some as the greatest musician Ghana has ever produced,” he added, before playing “Mpempem Do Me”.
Although not from one of the Commonwealth nations, US singer Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” is also “one of my particular favourites,” said the king.
“When I was much younger it was absolutely impossible not to get up and dance when it was played. I wonder if I can still just manage it,” he joked.
The king said that the songs evoked “many different styles and many different cultures” but that “all of them, like the family of Commonwealth nations, in their many different ways share the same love of life, in all its richness and diversity”.
The show was recorded to mark Commonwealth Day, which is being celebrated on Monday.
The Commonwealth is a bloc of 56 nations, most of which are British ex-colonies.
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