Taxi drivers make music video asking Londoners to go ‘Back to Black’ cabs

An Amy Winehouse song has been rewritten by drivers campaigning for Londoners to go "Back to Black" cabs.

The Licenced Taxi Drivers Association has released the music video because it wants the next Mayor of London to recognise it as the "best cab service in the world".

The campaigning cabbies claim they made the Stay Fare Mayor song to show that black taxis are not as "archaic" as their "enemies" portray them to be.

LTDA general secretary Steve McNamara said: “If you’re fed up with a second class mini cab service, then come back to black.

“We’re trying to show to Londoners that we’re the gold-standard service, the best cab service in the world is rapidly moving into the 21^st century.

“Our competitors, well, our enemies, they’re not nice people – they spend a lot of money trying to convey us as archaic but nothing could be further from the truth.

“What we’re trying to say to the incoming Mayor is we’re trying to maintain this service, it’s important.

“We’re iconic to this city – this is the greatest city in the world and we’ve got the greatest cab service.”

McNamara added that the Winehouse cover has been endorsed by late Amy’s father, Mitch.

He said: “Mitch Winehouse is obviously a cab driver so we were looking at doing a promo video for the trade so Back to Black was really symbolic.

“Mitch is more knowledgeable in the music business than us. They were very close despite that film – that film was diabolical. He’s actually a really nice guy.

“Mitch was more than happy to let us do the song.”

The music video took a month to produce and has received an "absolutely positive" reaction, McNamara said.

He said: “If we released it as a single, it’d be up there with the top ones. I mean, how many shaking booties can you have?”