Gaddafi's Speech / Zenga Zenga. Lol.


Gaddafi's Speech / Zenga Zenga.


About





Gaddafi’s Zenga Zenga is an emerging video remix series based on a nationally televised address by Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi on the recent protests, typically set to the rap song “Hey Baby” by Pitbull featuring T-Pain. “Zenga Zenga,” which means “alley” in Arabic, became a viral catchphrase after an Israeli journalist uploaded an autotune remix of Gaddafi’s speech featuring the quote over and over again.


Background

In February 2011, following the spark of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Libyans across the country began a series of massive street protests against Muammar Gaddafi’s 42 year autocracy. The demonstrations started on February 15th and towards the end of the month, it was reported that Gaddafi had lost control of most of his country with exception of a few strongholds in the western region.

On February 23rd, 2011, Gaddafi gave a nationally televised speech calling on his remaining supporters to defend their regime and capital city by standing up against the revolutionary forces.

During his hour-long, passionate, fist-pounding speech, Gaddafi was quoted as saying:
“I will call upon millions from desert to desert. We will march to purge Libya inch by inch, house by house, alley by alley.”




Origin

The Libyan leader’s Tuesday speech was broadcast by news agencies across the world on the same day. Among those who watched Gaddafi’s emotional speech was Noy Alooshe, 31 year old Israeli journalist and musician, who saw its potential for autotune and set the footage to “Hey Baby” by hiphop artists Pitbull and T-Pain. Alooshe’s remix, titled “Zenga Zenga” after Gaddafi’s rhetorical lines, was uploaded on February 24th and entered mass circulation via Twitter and Facebook. The clip instantly went viral, gaining over 2.7 million views within the first week.

Lyrics Translation
Inch- (2x) House- (2x)
Shelter- (2x) Back street- (2x)
One- (2x) Go ahead- (2x) Revolution- (2x)

I have millions of people supporting me,
I am asking Sahrawian people to invest, from desert to desert,
they invest, no one stop them, Hurry up- Hurry up-
It’s time to work, it’s time to invest, it’s time to win, no return-

Spread

Once Aloosh’s clip began to spread among Arabic-speaking users on Facebook and Twitter, it was soon adopted by the Libyan opposition and revolutionary groups for the pro-revolutionary lyrics ironically sung by none other than Gaddafi himself.

The video’s online reception was also covered by major news organizations and blogs across the Middle East and rest of the world, inspiring others to create their own parodies and photoshopped images of Gaddafi. While Aloosh did not reveal his Israeli nationality in the YouTube video description, it soon became clear after he was interviewed by the Israeli news media:

After some of the Arabic viewers’ complaints about female dancers in the video, Aloosh posted an alternative edition of his original video without the dance segment.


Noy Alooshe

Noy Alooshe
OriginTel AvivIsrael
GenresHip hopelectronic dance
OccupationsMusicianjournalist
Associated actsChovevei Tzion
Websitenoy-a.com
The song's creator, Noy Alooshe, is a 31 year-old "Israeli journalist, musician and Internet buff" of Tunisian Jewish descent. He lives in Tel Aviv and is a member of the Israeli techno groupChovevei Tzion ("Lovers of Zion"), best known for its hit song "Rotze Banot" ("I Want Girls"), a Hebrew remix of the Swedish dance song "Boten Anna." Alooshe said he is excited to "to be making waves in the Arab world as an Israeli" but he is also a bit worried: "what if Gaddafi stays in power and comes looking for me?"
As a result of his success from the video, Alooshe shared that he is also now receiving many commercial offers: "These days are crazy because advertisers are calling me and wanting me to do productions for them; music companies want to sell the song on iTunes." He has also received antisemitic death threats, though he said he is not too concerned since "at the moment they remain on the Internet."

Alooshe, who appears on his Facebook page wearing a Guns N Roses t-shirt (favorite quotation: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"), loves making funny remixes to share with friends.

"I always do stuff like this in Israel, but mostly from the entertainment world, like Lady Gaga," he says. "The only thing I had with politics in the past was ‘Livni Boy,' but there I was behind the scenes because I did it with my friend Dvir Bar. ‘Zenga' I did myself."


The catchy "Livni Boy" drew considerable national attention when it was posted in December 2008. The election-time musical satire, written in Hebrew by Alooshe, depicts a young man obsessed with Israeli Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni.
"In this case, I did research to find out the best people to send it to in the Arab world," says Alooshe. "After the revolution in Egypt, we all hear that the Arab countries are very connected to the Internet, but it surprised me how big this is. It's amazing."


The first three days, Alooshe saw lots of comments posted from people in Israel and Arab countries (he does not speak Arabic, so he had to use Google Translate to decipher what they were saying, and it was mostly positive). Before long, the clip's fame spread to Europe. "Everyone started talking about it. Today it's all over, even in Japan and Thailand."
Alooshe later made a second version, which has gotten 275,000 views so far. In response to some conservative Arab viewers' requests, this version does away with the sexy, gyrating female "bodyguard" images flanking Qaddafi in the original. He had borrowed that picture from another YouTube clip - "That's the beauty of the Internet; you can start mixing stuff together and create something new that's better than the original" - when he felt the video was "missing something."
He does not anticipate copyright problems since he is not making money off the clip, but acknowledges that if YouTube receives complaints from the producer of "Hey Baby" or the dancing girl video, it could pull his production.
Even if that happens, it wouldn't slow the stream of offers coming at Alooshe from all quarters. "These days are crazy because advertisers are calling me and wanting me to do productions for them; music companies want to sell the song on iTunes," he says. "I never dreamed I could sell a Qaddafi track in the US or Japan, but people really want it."
If he were to receive a plane ticket to appear on O'Brien's popular late-night cable-TV talk show, Conan, Alooshe would drop everything and go. In the meantime, he has more video tricks up his sleeve.
"I am waiting for things to calm down so I can start doing something else," he confides. "Yesterday, Qaddafi had another interview and people want me to do another remix. If I have time, I will."




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