About

"Mambo No. 5" is a mambo and jazz song originally composed by Dámaso Pérez Prado and popularized by a pop music cover version by Lou Bega in 1999.

Origin

On March 7th, 1950, Dámaso Pérez Prado released the song "Mambo No. 5," an instrumental mambo-jazz song (video below, left).^[1] Nearly 50 years later, on April 19th, 1999, Bega's single "Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of…)" was released by RCA Records (shown below, right).

Spread

Following the release of Bega's version, the song reached number one on the Australian and United Kingdom music charts and number two in the United States.^[1] However, the song became the subject of a copyright trial between Bega and Prado's estate. In the end, after a seven-year dispute, courts decided that Prado and Bega would share a co-songwriting credit.^[2]

On October 24th, 2009, Beta uploaded the song's music video to YouTube using the LouBegaOfficial YouTube account. Within a decade, the music video has received more than 200 million views. Months later, on September 27th, 2010, YouTuber -manuela- posted a video edit of Carlton from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" doing "The Carlon" to Bega's version. As of February 2019, the video has more than 1.3 million views (shown below).

The following year, on December 31st, 2011, Urban Dictionary ^[3] user Fuzzy Slippers (The Brother) defined the song as "A hypnotic trance men with an unusual swagger put woman into in order to perform ass to mouth." Within eight years, the post has received more than 20 upvotes.

In 2014, a University of Amsterdam in association with Manchester’s Museum of Science & Industry conducted a study called the "citizen science experiment." Using an online game called "Hooked On Music," in which participants determined how recognizable a song was, "Mambo No. 5" was named the second most recognizable song since 1940.^[5]

On August 25th, 2015, conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh posted about the song on Facebook. ^[4] He wrote, "Lou Bega and Mambo Number 5. If I didn't know what this song was, it would just be noise to me. Since I'd heard this song before I lost my hearing, my brain, my memory tells me what the melody is with the cochlear implant. But if I didn't know what this song is, it would be noise. It'd be the same note, and it would be flat." The post received more than 800 reactions, 60 comments and 100 shares (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References