Video: Three Latin American Viral Sensations Unite for Israel

Through the Latin American social networks there is a new video spreading like wildfire: it unites three of the most recognized viral video sensations in one. Peruvian La Tigresa del Oriente and Wendy Sulca with Ecuadorian Delfin Quishpe virtually united to sing “I'll dance in your lands”, a song about Israel. None of them have visited Israel, but that didn't stop them from singing about the beauty of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Delfin, Tigresa and Wendy in a poppy field.

Delfin Quishpe is an indigenous Kichwa Ecuadorian who became famous after his blue-screen hit “The Twin Towers” was uploaded on Internet on 2006., in the video, he lamented the death of his girlfriend in 9-11, but his bad acting and dance moves gathered all the attention.  Next in the lineup is  Tigresa del Oriente. Her name is Judith Bustos, a make-up artist and home-maker from the Amazon region of Peru who decided to try her luck writing songs and singing them in 2006. Someone uploaded her videos and skyrocketed her to internet stardom; leopard clothing, press-on nails and jungle dancers included. Wendy Sulca is the youngest of the three. At the tender age of 8 she apparently hit on the recipe for viral video success with not one, but two videos: on one hand, her single “La Tetita” on the subject of breast feeding and on the other hand, “Cerveza, Cerveza” a song about how one beer is never enough.

The campy trio's video has already been picked up by media in foreign countries. According to Carlos Reyes of  ShoutCast music blog,

The three artists have transcended their 15 minutes of fame to become part of the Latino vernacular, at least on the Web. Many refer to them as characters, but the whole reason why they have exploded in popularity is because they're anything but; they're just too far away from pop music's standards.

That's not all.  In  Argentina's newspaper Panorama they quote Residente, who is the lead singer of Grammy winning band Calle 13,  as stating:

El mejor junte que he visto. Histórico. Es como si se juntaran Madonna, Lady GaGa y Michael Jackson

This is the best collaboration I've seen. Historic. It's as if Madonna, Lady GaGa and Michael Jackson recorded something together.

Roy Palomino for collaborative online magazine LaMula.pe interviewed Judith Bustos, who says about Israel: It is, I believe, in the other side of the world. She thanks @Calle13oficial and also rocker Juanes from Colombia who congratulated her, @tigresaoriente, through his twitter account @Juanestwiter. However, what she doesn't say about the video is more revealing than what she does say. When asked about who is the mastermind behind this, she says it is a secret but that we'll soon find out who is the “important editor” who put together this viral video. Where they set up? And if so, would it be a bad thing?

The three artists apparently didn't need to travel to make their collaboration: each artist recorded in front of a blue screen and also in different local sites including a pen with camels, a boat in a lake with monkeys in the background and rustic houses. In some parts of the video their images are cut and superimposed in front of different stock videos or each other: from scuba diving scenes, windmills and lakes to images of what we assume they believe are beaches, parties and sights of Israel. The lyrics speak of how they would like to visit Israel to dance on their lands, and how beautiful it is. On Viral Video Chart they report the statistics as follows:

367,851 views
Discovered 20 Apr 2010
89 blog posts
0 duplicate videos
996 tweets
2,564 comments
30,828 Facebook shares

However, a quick search on YouTube shows us that there are now dozens of duplicates soaring through the web.

On Twitter, the stickyness of the song was expressed by @jdclarke00 of Costa Rica:

#Iconfess that I only saw the video one time. But I woke up singing “Israel, Israel, how pretty Israel is”

@FranPisca also had an earworm brought on by second-hand contagion:

1 friend at the office sang the “hit” by Wendy, Delfin and the Tigress of the North “Israel, I'll dance in your lands”. I hate her, now it's stuck!

Chilean @Natycronopia wasn't too pleased about her coworkers enthusiasm:

I'm tortured by @rfiguers with the song by Wendy, La Tigresa del oriente and Delfin. I don't get paid to stand for this.

So with no further ado; here is the video for I'll Dance In Your Lands the song claimed by some to be the “We are the World” of Latin America:

And finally, as if any more proof of its popularity was needed, already several “tribute” videos and parodies have been uploaded. In the Official Tigresa del Oriente blog they selected a couple of them to share:

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