[originally posted by Booklady on 11-29-2002 12:16 PM]
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Great New York Times article about Las Ketchup!
New York Times 11/29/02 International Edition!

MADRID, Nov. 28 — It began almost as a joke, a garbled tribute to one of rap's earliest hits. But "Asereje," the single recorded by Las Ketchup, has become a global phenomenon, selling four million copies, topping the charts in 17 countries and sneaking into the United States in a Spanglish version known as "The Ketchup Song," just as the Christmas party season gets under way.

"We weren't expecting to be a success even in Spain," Lola Muñoz, one of three sisters who make up Las Ketchup, said in a phone interview.

"We went into the recording studio almost as a joke," she said. "But the single began to get radio play and everyone liked it, so we finished the album very quickly and set out to do a lot of promotion in Spain."

It worked. The song is so infectious and, in Spain, so ubiquitous, that here even toddlers recognize the opening beats and start to dance, their less than slick moves still faithful to Las Ketchup's arm-waving, hand-crossing, knee-knocking style.

Comparisons with "La Macarena," the last Spanish dance-along song to conquer the world, are inevitable, but many here say they find "The Ketchup Song" significantly less annoying.

The Muñoz sisters — Pilar, Lucía and Lola — called themselves Las Ketchup as a tribute to their father, a flamenco guitarist known as El Tomate, or Tomato, from the southern city of Córdoba, famous for its gorgeous Moorish mosque and long history of flamenco music and dance.

The three had no particular pop ambitions. Pilar, the eldest, is an actress. Lucía, the youngest, was singing in a flamenco fusion group while Lola was completing a university degree in industrial relations — which helped somewhat when cutting a record deal.

But Manuel (Queco) Ruiz, a producer and composer, heard about the trio and wrote "Asereje" for them. "He liked the name, more than anything," says Rafael Madroñal of Columbia Records, which signed the group in Spain.

The original Spanish lyrics tell the story of Diego, a "Rastafarian Afro-Gypsy" who wears "a navy blue suit and goes after contraband," and his visit to a disco where the DJ plays Diego's favorite song.

That turns out to be "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang, but Diego's attempt to sing along to the chorus — along the lines of "I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop, you don't stop" — comes out as: "Asereje, ja deje, dejebe tu dejebe deseri iowa a mavy an de bugui an de guidibidi," which is even more nonsensical in Spanish than the original is in English.

That has not stopped millions from happily singing along, many of them tourists who spent their summer vacations dancing in Spain and then took the record back home.

The song has been parodied in Germany, where Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is said to be unamused by "Der Steuersong" ("The Tax Song"), a version of "Asereje" that castigates him for breaking his election promise and raising taxes.

The Ketchup sisters, who will be touring the United States in January, have barely found time to enjoy their newfound celebrity. "This is an opportunity, and we have to make the most of it," Ms. Muñoz said. "There will be time for having fun later."

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Booklady