From Snoop Lion and Miley Cyrus to Madonna and Lil Wayne, the back catalogues of music are littered with strange and misjudged collaborations.
However, a new duet has emerged to rival them all. After weeks of Twitter teasing, grime MC Tinchy Stryder has finally released his new music video with moustached children’s television hosts the Chuckle Brothers.
The title of the track, To Me, To You, plays on a well-known Chuckle Brothers sketch from their 90s television show and the video shows the duo, made up of Barry and Paul Elliott, arguing over a ladder on a suburban housing estate before joining Stryder for a game of table tennis.
The novelty song includes profound lyrics such as “You must be Barry, and he’s Paul / Nah something’s weird, where’s your ladders?” and “Stop all that me to you to me to you to me to you stuff / We’ve both got things to do to me to you to me to you bruv.”
After being online for 24 hours the video had already accumulated more than 150,000 views. All profits from the song will go to the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust. Rumours of the unusual collaboration were sparked in September after a video of the grime artist skanking in a music studio with the comedic siblings was posted online by Stryder, and the younger Chuckle brother Paul Elliott tweeted thay they had all been “laying down some cool stuff”.
Phil Dale, the Chuckle Brothers’ manager, said the pairing came about after Tinchy Stryder and the Chuckle Brothers met while filming an episode of Keith Lemon’s ITV show Celebrity Juice and “got on like a house on fire”. “They kept going into each other’s dressing rooms,” said Dale. “Tinchy grew up with the Chuckle brothers and has been a longtime fan of theirs, so after that he invited them to his London studio.
“It was just a bit of fun to see what could happen because they really got on with each other. Then they came back and filmed the video. You couldn’t put it together if you tried but it was just the very fact that they were having fun with Tinchy, and he was having fun with them and they got on like a house on fire. They still contact each other all the time.”
Asked whether he thought this collaboration with a 28-year-old grime artist would boost the street credibility of the slapstick duo, aged 69 and 67, Dale said: “I honestly don’t know and with all sincerity it wasn’t done for that.
“They are still going into pantomime this Christmas, so it’s simply and purely a bit of fun.”
On the music video’s release on Thursday, Stryder tweeted: “Any profits from the Chuckles collaboration go to the fantastic @ACLTcharity so let’s get behind it. A cause close to my heart.”
To Me, To You is the first song released by Stryder since his single ESG in June, taken from his forthcoming album 360.