Tel Aviv - An Israeli, whose spoof video showing Libya's Muammar Gaddafi rapping from his balcony has become a sensation on the internet, said Thursday he had received numerous death threats.
Noy Alooshe, a 31-year-old music journalist and producer, re-mixed one of Gaddafi's recent Tripoli speeches to Hey Baby by American rappers Pitbull and T-pain.
Since uploading it to YouTube 10 days ago, the mix has become a worldwide hit, with more than 3 million hits on the video-sharing website.
They include more than 2.5 million hits for the original, and over 600 000 for a second version he made at the request of conservative fans, which does not feature two scantily-clad girls dancing in the forefront.
Alooshe said messages on his YouTube profile and Facebook and Twitter accounts include threats like “We will come to get you” and “We will come to kill you,” as well as curses and anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic remarks.
But he has also received plenty of positive responses, including by Muslims saying his film and its success proves that “music connects people, even if they are enemies.”
“It's about half and half,” Alooshe told the German Press Agency Asked if he was scared, he said: “Not really. At the moment they (the threats) remain on the internet.”
“Also, Gaddafi is not one of the most loved people in the Arab world,” he said, “so I try to flow with it.”
“Shiber shiber, beit beit, dar dar, zenga zenga (inch inch, house house, apartment apartment, alleyway alleyway),” Gaddafi is seen chanting in Alooshe's video, raising his fist rhythmically to the beat as he vows to hunt down the protesters.
Alooshe therefore called it the Zenga Zenga Song.
A mobile phone ring tone has been made out of his mix, which “gets downloaded nicely,” he said. T-shirts with Gaddafi's caricature and the words Zenga Zenga have also been printed.
The author said he had even been approach by some Iranians, who had asked him to mix a revolutionary song for them.
“It's amazing to see it,” said the music producer, adding that “for me it's part of the profession” and has less to do with politics. - Sapa-dpa