The story of the Zenga Zenga Songs, spawned from music-inspiring speeches!
When Israeli maverick DJ blogger Noy Alooshe was struck with inspiration from Gaddafi's foot-stomping, air punching Zenga-Zenga speech to create a spoof dance video of re-mixed Gadhafi speech with song by rappers Pitbull and T-Pain, the whole world audience was hungry for such a comic, catchy twist to an otherwise sinister speech, littered with death-threats.
Hence was born a whole wave of imaginative re-creations and crazy versions of the 'Revolutionary' AKA Zenga-Zenga speech- with a Shakira version, MC Hammer and even a household livingroom dance-mime-verson - by unknown elderly man, not spared from the Zenga musical fever!
The song in all its glorious versions covers the words chanted most emphatically in his speech as chorus lyrics: Gaddafi's 'original' describes how we will come after his rebellious people to stamp out any resistance in a murderous clampdown on each town: He will hunt them down, Inch by inch .. House by House, Home by Home, Alley by Alley (Zenga Zenga) .. .. March ahead , Revolution Revolution!
These are the words feeding the slew of songs, of which we have for you the best of the bunch.
Who would have thought we would all become fans or iTunes buyers of Gaddafi the musical phenomenon, taken from one of his speeches identified now as Arabic for "Revolution" (Thawra) adapted into song-spoof that by now has spread so rapidly on YouTube and social networks? it was 'composer' Israeli Noi Alush who was who pioneered the trend mixing a song dreamt up from the words "Zenga Zenga" spawning subsequent variations on the Zenga theme after that which included the famous Colombian-Lebanese singer "Shakira," a dance to the tune of "Zenga Zenga" instead of "Waka Waka."
If Gaddafi does step down from the political stage, or is driven out by the international intervention, there is a career as a music artist or performer ready for him to fall back on.
An interresting bi-product to emerge from this music-meets-politics circus, Zenga has cropped up as the word of choice in a love song for UAE singer Yasser Habib recently:
"I'm searching for you, home by home, house by house and I ask for you in every Zenga Zenga (alleyway)"
And so, demonstrating a transposition or leap in context, of hunting down someone house by house alley by alley. This paradigm shift in the creative use of this now household catch-phrase Zenga-Zenga - to be applied as befits any context or situation- will probably to go down in the urban dictionary to connote any number of such uses.
