The Israeli behind Gaddafi ‘Zenga Zenga' video

2 Mar 2011 A Tel Aviv musician created a video spoofing Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, and to his surprise it's become a hit - among Arabs.

By Avigayil Kadesh "It's really strange that someone like Qaddafi made me a YouTube star," says Noy Alooshe. (Photo: Dor Malca) Noy Alooshe, the 31-year-old Tel Aviv journalist/musician behind the viral YouTube hit "Zenga Zenga" - an electronic hip-hop number riffing off a recent fiery speech by Libya's Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi - says he hasn't slept in days. He has been cheerfully fielding interview requests from five TV stations, six websites, seven newspapers - including The New York Times - and "a lot of radio stations." All from a two-minute clip that took a few hours to produce on his home computer. "It's really strange that someone like Qaddafi made me a YouTube star," Alooshe reflects in a telephone interview. "This is the real revolution." The inspiration for the clip, which had gotten 1.8 million hits just six days after it was uploaded, came from Qaddafi's overly dramatic speech promising to hunt down Libyan protesters "inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway." Zanqa, the Arabic word for alleyway, was quickly morphed into "zenga zenga" by American comic Conan O'Brien, so Alooshe decided to title his masterpiece accordingly. He chose to set the speech to the strains of Hey Baby by the rappers Pitbull and T-Pain. After Alooshe uploaded his creation, he sent out Twitter and Facebook alerts to about 30 media outlets and trendsetters in the Arab world, and suddenly he was famous. "I didn't think it would get this kind of response. It was supposed to be for fun," he says. 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." http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/IsraelExperience/Israeli_behind_Zenga_Zenga_2-Mar-2011.htm