Shaggy feat Trix & Flix - Feel The Rush

I meant to post this on the opening day of the European football championships but anyway, the first round concludes today so now seems as good a time as ever. It's an uptempo soca track by Shaggy alongside the official tournament mascots, Trix and Flix:

MP3: Shaggy feat Trix & Flix - Feel The Rush

shaggy-feat-trix-flix-feel-the-rush-image01

Quite why the tournament organisers chose a Jamaican/American dancehall artist to record the official song for a European event in Austria in Switzerland is initially unclear. But it turns out there's a tenuous connection in the form of Swiss-Iranian producer Samim whose massive hit Heater is sampled here - Samim has remixed this track as well.

In fact, when you follow the global trail of samples, remixes and versions that Feel The Rush leaves in its wake, it may be a canny move by UEFA to give the song (and the tournament) as broad an appeal as possible. So we end up with a Caribbean version by a mainstream American star of a Berlin-based producer's smash club hit which sampled a South American folk song and was remixed by a San Francisco house/techno DJ.

It's also interesting how in the video (around 2m45s), the riff sampled from the Colombian classic La Cumbia Cienaguera is mimicked on an accordion by a man wearing traditional Alpine garb:

Not knowing what Swiss/Austrian folk music sounds like, I'm not sure if this highlights the musical connections between two geographically distant cultures or is merely an example of lazily lumping together interchangeable exotic sounds under a 'world music'-type umbrella. This easy transference of apparent origin from continent to continent reminded me of the Japanese/Indian and Latino/Arabic questions raised by the Pearl Haaba and Middle East riddims.

Buy Feel The Rush (including remixes): digital release or 12" vinyl.

Posted by Gabriel Heatwave | Wednesday 18 June 2008

Comments

1. Let The City Save Us on 19 June 2008

dunno who produced it, but if you compare it with the official world cup anthem for 2006, you hear quite the similarity. mostly the guitars right at the start. okay, it’s a soca/reggaeton-beat beneath, but somehow...even the choir sounds strangely like it could have been singing “feel the love generation” two years ago. 

well, and i’d go for the lazily lumping together-theory. simply just because samin’s heater was quite a huge club track (as i heard) that doesn’t “hurt” anyone (keepin it airplay-compatible) and shaggy as kind of a well-known voice...mix it up, put your mascots in the video...instant hit. 

and swiss/austrian folk music isn’t sooo close to whatever the sample source for heater was ;)

[german sales charts: started at 10 last week, this week 8. only euro-song with higher placement is the “official” german (rockish) anthem by revolverheld at 6]

2. Nina on 19 June 2008

Well, afaik, back in the day Germans took the accordion to Colombia, and the locals integrated it into their music.

So there is perhaps a tiny connection there. But I doubt that anyone connected the dots in an attempt to make this song complete the circle. Its kind of zigzagging, actually, back and forth from Germany to the Caribbean

Musically? It sucks. Its quite generic.But in a happy sort of way, I guess.

3. Gabriel Heatwave on 04 July 2008

Interesting, I didn’t know the accordion had German origins…

Wayne&Wax on related exotic sampling and re-placement:

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=180
http://wayneandwax.com/?p=163

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