Waka waka

do u ever have a broken tape recorder in your head?

it just keeps playing the same song over and over again?

sometimes its a undesireable song, but it gets stuck.

maybe because u don't like it and then you are conscious of it and then you hear it for the whole day, sometimes a week - in your head.

even if you play your favorite song 50 times, the tape recorder in your head does not get the message and still plays the annoying song.

today i had this wierd shakira - fifa 2010 song stuck in my head- it is called "waka waka". i am not too much of a shakira fanatic, but she has some good songs, but i do like her less "pop" counterparts.

but she has a good fusion of latin america and middle eastern culture.... representative of immigration and history.

so waka waka eh eh... tsamina mina eh eh waka waka eh eh

tsamina mina a zangalewa (or something) were the lyrics...

so i googled and found out that the song was actually popular in the '80s (not sung by her) but by a cameroonian group.

"“Tsamina” or “Zangaléwa” is a 1986 hit song, originally sung by a makossa group from Cameroon called Golden Sounds who were beloved throughout the continent for their silly dances and costumes. The song was such a hit for Golden Sounds that they eventually changed their name to Zangaléwa, too.The song pays tribute to African skirmishers (a.k.a tirailleurs) during WW2. Most of the band members were in the Cameroonian Army themselves and used make up, fake belly and fake butt for comic relief. The song is still used today almost everywhere in Africa by soldiers, policemen, boy scouts, sportsmen and their supporters, usually during training or for rallying. It is also widely used in schools throughout the continent especially in Cameroon as a marching song and almost everyone in the country knows the chorus of the song by heart. The song was also popular in Colombia where it was known as “The Military” and brought to the contry by West African DJs.
The men in the group often dressed in military uniforms, wearing pith helmets and stuffing their clothes with pillows to appear like they had a swollen butts from riding the train and fat stomachs from eating too much. The song, music historians say, is a criticism of blackmilitary officers who were in league with whites to oppress their own people. Or at least, some of it was. The rest is Cameroonian slang and jargon from the soilders during the war."

(excerpt courtesy: http://buzzytimes.com/waka-waka-meaning-time-for-africa-the-original-version-video-waka-waka-tsamina/)

the words in the original song mean and in Shakira's song mean:

# Tsaminamina means Come.
# Waka waka means Do it – as in perform a task. Waka is pidgin language meaning walk while working.
# Tsaminamina zangalewa means where do you come from?.
# Wana means it is mine.
# Zambo means wait.

In the end i feel enlightened for having shakira's annoying waka waka song stuck in my head! Cameroon, Cote De Ivoire, sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana etc. they all seen hard times ...but this song is to better times.