Gaddafi does the Zenga-Zenga

March 1, 2011 12:18 PM

Gaddafi does the Zenga-Zenga (youtube) Video featuring a Gadhafi speech paired with the rap music track 'Hey Baby'. Despite being created by a Jewish Israeli music journalist, reactions around the Arab world have been largely positive.

Alternative version without the dancing girl and the original video of 'Hey Baby' by U.S. rappers Pitbull and T-Pain.

posted by Lanark (26 comments total)

Previously.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:21 PM on March 1, 2011

The Arab reactions were created by a Jewish Isreali journalist? Powerful stuff.
posted by Dragonness at 12:21 PM on March 1, 2011

See, now I read that as the whole "Arab world" was created by a Jewish Israeli music journalist.
posted by tomswift at 12:25 PM on March 1, 2011

In a lot of ways, God was a Jewish Israeli music journalist, so you're all right.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:28 PM on March 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

That sounded like a million bucks! :)
posted by By The Grace of God at 12:29 PM on March 1, 2011

In a lot of ways, God was a Jewish Israeli music journalist, so you're all right.

No, no...God just likes to think he writes for Pitchfork.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:31 PM on March 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Damn. I was hoping Zenga-Zenga was slang for 23 skidoo (am-scrayed).
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:32 PM on March 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Go Muammar! You are a hit with the ladies
posted by growabrain at 12:34 PM on March 1, 2011

Altogether now!

!!!بيت بيت!!! دار دار
posted by dougrayrankin at 12:35 PM on March 1, 2011

House house realm realm?
posted by Burhanistan at 12:36 PM on March 1, 2011

In a lot of ways, God was a Jewish Israeli music journalist, so you're all right.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.

Solomon revisits his usual material here, but the sense of poetry, invention, of burgeoning verse nourished by the sun and rain of his love is beginning to feel a bit thin. Also he's beginning to creep Me out, a little bit.
posted by clockzero at 12:36 PM on March 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

House house realm realm?

I never promised the Colonel would speak sense.
posted by dougrayrankin at 12:39 PM on March 1, 2011

I was expecting something more scathing because of all the incredulity about omg!Muslims liking this, but it's basically Autotune the News Dictator. Fun for the whole Mediterranean!
posted by oinopaponton at 12:46 PM on March 1, 2011

WE CALLED IT
posted by The Whelk at 12:53 PM on March 1, 2011

Heh. I was just thinking last night that riffs on Gaddafi's speech were going to become the new "Hitler in his bunker." I for one can't wait to hear (i.e., read in subtitles) what Gaddafi thinks about the new PS3 firmware!
posted by rkent at 1:11 PM on March 1, 2011

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.

Woah, that's where that Stephen Duffy lyric came from? I'll be fucked...
posted by 7segment at 1:43 PM on March 1, 2011

What a relief. At first I thought this was Gaddafi doing the bunga bunga, and there is no way in hell I'm going to watch that video.
posted by msalt at 2:52 PM on March 1, 2011

House house realm realm?

Maybe these Pitchfork-loving hipsters are calling it realmhouse, but it's just a ripoff of the 1930s Berlin goosestep scene.
posted by arto at 2:52 PM on March 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dar in the libyan dialect means room, zenga is an alleyway/narrow street.

He is threatening to rid tripoli of the protesters down to every last one.

Chilling. Except that everyone is laughing at him. Ridicule is all he deserves.
posted by mulligan at 10:05 PM on March 1, 2011

I think if there is going to be world peace, its going to involve hot-movin' booty.

Whirled piece for everyone!
posted by hal_c_on at 11:29 PM on March 1, 2011

I have to say, these protests are potentially the best thing that could ever happen to Arabs and the Jewish people. For years, the leaders of all countries (including Israel) in the Middle East have been pretty successful at getting their native inhabitants to ignore the problems happening in their own backyard and instead become fixated on the whole IP conflict. Now, people are fed up. They're sick of their leaders, leaders who have done everything in their power to perpetuate the conflict. It's my deep hope that one result of the emergence of freedom is that the people decide that they, not their leaders, will finally resolve the conflict, and they will do so by simply refusing to fight anymore. There's no benefit to anyone -- anyone but the politicians.

That's my dream.

That, and that Gaddafi dies peacefully in his sleep tonight and no one else dies in Libya.
posted by Deathalicious at 12:23 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

إن شاء الله
posted by dougrayrankin at 4:09 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Despite being created by a Jewish Israeli music journalist, reactions around the Arab world have been largely positive.


Not all Arabs have knee-jerk shoe throwing reactions towards Jews or Israelis.

Also, did I just see a picture of Al Bundy briefly superimposed over that YouTube bootyshake video? Or have I have not enough coffee this morning...
posted by willie11 at 4:50 AM on March 2, 2011

Translation from one of the YouTube comments:

shiber shiber: inch by inch

beit beit = house by house

dar dar = room by room

zenga zenga: [alley by alley]

ila al amam: lets go forward

thawra: revolution

ma3y el malayeen: i have millions

ad3ou el malayeen min el sahra lil sahra: i ask the millions from the desert to the desert

awajjih nida2 lil malayeen min sahara lil sahra: I call for the millions from the desert to the desert

wo ma had yugdra yougifhun: and nobody can stop them

daqqit sa3it el (3amal, zahif, intisar): its time for work, to march, to win

I've split it up to make it more readable. mtshamimtshami's using the chat convention of using numbers to represent Arabic letters that don't have Latin alphabet equivalents. The number 3 stands for the letter ع which has kind of an "ah" sound. (It's usually omitted in transcription or represented by an apostophe.)
posted by nangar at 8:00 AM on March 2, 2011

I've been listening to this again with the help of mtshamimtshami's translation. The remix is more brilliant than I realized. Chopped up this way, it's as if he's exhorting the uprising rather than opposing it:

Inch by inch, house by house, room by room, alley by alley, go forward! Revolution! Revolution! Go forward, revolution! I have millions ...

It's even more amazing if, as the NYT says, Noy Alooshe doesn't speak Arabic. I suspect though that Alooshe doesn't speak Arabic the way I don't speak Spanish (meaning he can understand quite a bit of it, but can't speak it) and knew exactly what he was doing.
posted by nangar at 9:49 AM on March 2, 2011

Anyone else think that Qadhafi looks a bit like the bad dudes from Star Trek: Insurrection?
posted by dougrayrankin at 2:44 PM on March 2, 2011