The Velvet Onion has been alerted by many of our peelers to the new single from cyborg-voiced singer T-Pain, in collaboration with Italian producer Benny Banassi.

Why is this relevant, we hear you ask?  Well, the song is called Electroman… and main hook throughout the song sounds more than a little familiar…

Quite understandably, a lot of Boosh fans were somewhat irate at the thought that Noel & Julian’s classic Electroboy song [itself a pastiche of early 80s new wave!] from the first series of The Mighty Boosh had been ripped off so outrageously.  But fear not, we at TVO held back before posting a response, to find out the whole story.  After all, whilst he’s a successful rnb musician in his own right, T-Pain is perhaps best known in England for his hilarious collaboration with The Lonely Island… so its clear he has a sense of humour.  Perhaps there was more to this than meets the eye?

With Dave Brown wading into the melee to confirm T-Pain’s side of the story, all that is left for us to do is to tell you that the track, should you wish to download it, is available via iTunes from the 6th March.  To preorder the EP single for £2.49, click here.And, it turns out there was, as T-Pain and Banassi asked permission from Noel Fielding & Julian Barratt to sample the track.  On his Twitter account, the star fended off the abuse he was receiving by more vocal aspects of Boosh fandom, explaining that he himself is a fan of the show, and sent the track to the Boosh boys for approval before its release.

Of course, this controversy could do wonders for the Boosh’s popularity Stateside, where T-Pain is particularly successful.  With 300,000 Twitter followers, its safe to say that a lot of people heard about the Boosh for the first time yesterday, which can only be a good thing, surely?  Still, if by chance this track still isn’t to your liking, here is the original to restore your palette to its usual Booshy flavourings…