miércoles, 23 de junio de 2010

ZAMINAMINA

 The news has spread like wildfire, especially on the web. Shakira plagiarized Wilfrido Vargas´song sung by the "Girls of Can" of Dominican Republican in the eighties called "The black man cannot", but known as Zaminamina.

The song, which is nothing less than the World Cup´anthem at of South Africa and it has become next to "Wave Your Flag" K`naan, in the most played tunes in almost every country in the world. Although Africans are more identified with the song of K`nan, even though this is Coca Cola promotion, because it is interpreted by the African Somali origin who always sings to his African roots, but he lives since thirteen in Canada.

Waka waka, as is known the song that plays Shakira, is not a creation of the Colombian performer and composer, but neither it is original performed by Wilfrido Vargas or the "Girls of Can ". It is a traditional African song, sung in Fang language, a variant of the Bantu. This language is spoken in part of Equatorial Guinea, South Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and the islands of Sao Tome and Principe. In total the Fang language is spoken by a million people so waka waka sounds like a tongue twister for most Africans , more than 1.2 billion people who speak a language other than Fang.

Waka Waka is an action you or your but its conceptual translation Fang language would be something like you can. As always beckon twister, maybe this song is always so tacky. The letter in its original language is as follows:

Zamina mine hé hé
Waka Waka he he
Zamina ou mine
Zangalewa
Anawam ha ha

On the meaning in english some have posted the following:

"It does not hurt the coup, there is no fear, take off the dust, stand up and go back into the ring"

Totally made up. The true but not literal translation is:

Come ye eh eh
You do it he he
Who sent you?
Who called you?
Yes, is me

The song is definitely not original but neither is Shakira nor Wilfrido Vargas and can girls as we have said. It's a song generally used in the army of Cameroon, but also by the Boy Scouts in this central African country. Although it is traditional, made famous by a band called the Golden Sounds in the eighties, and became so famous that they changed the name of the band to Waka waka .

The original song has another part that does not appear in the version of Shakira but if the can girls of the eighties :

Yango hé hé
Yango hé hé
Zamina ou mine
Zangalewa
Anawam ha ha
It translates as follows:

I hoped I
I hoped I
Who sent you ?
Who called you ?
Yes, Is me
This song has been recorded by no less than ten bands.

1 comentario:

  1. I am surprise you did not add that Shakira has paid the rights to use this bridge weather it was after the accusations or not. She has made things right weather she knew before all the booh ha or not is not question. The song unites people just like football what is the value of all this negative publicity.

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