JEDDAH: With more than 2.8 billion views on YouTube, the song “Despacito” by pop singer Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee broke the Internet and took the whole world by storm as it recently became the most viewed song in the world of music.
“Despacito,” which means “slowly” in Spanish, is gaining popularity throughout the world, and has recently entered Omani homes after the release of an Arabic-Omani version titled “You Exhausted Them” discussing the problem of high dowry and marriage costs in the country.
A group of young Omani singers, including Mohammed Al-Manji and Muhannad Al-Adwani, released the song, where seven men and two women performed in a video clip uploaded to YouTube to receive over 967,081 views in just a few days after the song’s release.
The song tells the story of an Omani young man who proposed to a girl and went to meet her father who surprised him with a list of demands, including “dowry, jewelry, house, car...”
The singer, in return, responds to the old man’s lengthy list complaining “Why do you put conditions that break our backs? Have you forgotten how cheap dowries used to be in your time?“
The Omani song received a huge turnout and great applause on social media platforms, especially the video’s high-quality production that surpassed the quality of many Omani TV works, according to many tweets.
“This is the quality required in Omani productions; I wish Omani channels would attracts such talents instead of what is being offered,” said Salah.
Another Twitter user agreed with the somewhat “noble message” the young men conveyed and said: “Marry them off and make it easy for everyone.”
“What a beautiful and simple message that addresses the biggest problem suffered by young people under the current circumstances,” said another wondering “will society ever respond?”
Meanwhile, not all tweets were in favor of the way the song was presented — dancing and photography, where some people deemed it inappropriate for Omani society, despite the significance of the theme and message behind it.
“The message and its content is expensive dowries... But the performance and Western dancing are not so creative,” Ayman Al-Hassani said criticizing the video clip. “We can differ in our taste and opinions, but we all agree that our young people are able to contribute to our visual media a million times better than our state-run channels,” said Mohammed.
