Arguably the song of 2017 and certainly the anthem of the summer has been the Spanish-written song “Despacito” (translation: “Slowly”) by Puerto Rican singer songwriter Luis Alfonso Rodríguez López-Cepero also known as Luis Fonsi featuring legendary Reggaeton artist Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez better known as Daddy Yankee.
The song itself has been remixed and repackaged to the English speaking world which features Canadian pop artist Justin Bieber to help the song gain popularity in English speaking countries and there is also an official Portuguese translation for the song featuring Brazilian singer Israel Novaes replacing Daddy Yankee.
The official video has amassed nearly 3 billion views on YouTube which many believe will become the most viewed YouTube video of all time as well accumulating a whopping 4.6 billion streams and counting leading Despacito to become the most streamed song in history as you can imagine the retail translation is big bucks.
But for those of us who do not possess the skills to understand or speak Spanish enjoy the songs melodic and rhythmic tone coincided with the reggaeton beats we could be forgiven thinking that Despacito is nothing more than a happy, innocent Latin American song. Well it turns out when translated into English the lyrics are more sinister than we might have originally thought.
You see the lyrics to the pop-reggaeton track are actually quite edgy with lines such as “Let me trespass your danger zones” and “I want to see your hair dance” it would be a big surprise that if the song was in English it would have even received the go ahead to be released let alone parents playing Fonsi and Daddy Yankee in front of their kids. Some of the lyrics get even more X-rated and you can see the full translation here on Billboards website.
Despacito’s lyrics were even considered bad enough in Malaysia to see the government ban the song from government-owned media platforms due to be “un-Islamic” and “not suitable to be heard” whilst advising other radio stations to follow suit.
But as the song is just so catchy we can just use the excuse that we don’t understand it and enjoy it anyway. Let us know what you think of the lyrics.
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