Don Omar remains one of the undisputed kings of reggaeton, helping to bring the genre to a wider audience and strengthen its dominance in popular culture.
Yet many may not remember the indelible mark he left on Arab pop music.
The 2007 dance floor sensation “Tigi Tigi” — which means “come here” in Egyptian Arabic — saw the reggaeton MC reach across the ocean to Egyptian hitmaker Hakim, marking a turning point for Arab-Latin fusions in music.
Even in the aftermath of Shakira’s 1998 solo hit, “Ojos Así,” a tribute to her paternal Lebanese heritage, there was still a dearth of Arab-Latino cultural exchanges in pop. “Tigi Tigi” paved the way for further collaborations between Arab and Latin artists, including Gente de Zona and Mohammed Assaf in 2017’s “Baddek Enaya,” or Karol G and Lartiste’s 2019 track “Peligrosa.”
By 2007, both Don Omar and Hakim had cemented themselves as pioneers and icons in their respective genres. Don Omar solidified his position at the forefront of the global reggaeton movement, while Hakim had established himself as a superstar in the Middle East and North Africa in the ’90s and 2000s. He helped popularize Egyptian jeel music: a genre that incorporates elements of reggae and pop, while maintaining a distinctly Egyptian sound.
Don Omar first flew to Cairo in 2006 to meet Hakim and begin recording “Tigi Tigi.” The track was produced with Egyptian composers Tamer Sakr and Wahid El-Meligy, as well as the multiplatinum Puerto Rican producer Eliel Lind Osorio, who is credited on hit songs “Dile” and “Hasta Abajo.”
The reggaeton artist recounted his visit to Cairo in an Instagram postlast October. He shared behind-the-scenes footage of the recording session and said that he “didn’t expect to travel so far and hear ‘Dale Don Dale’ as a ringtone on almost every phone” in the city.
While Arab artists had performed with English-language artists prior to 2006 — the most notable being Sting’s chart-topping 1999 hit “Desert Rose” with Algerian crooner Cheb Mami, or Hakim’s 2004 singles that miraculously featured both James Brown and Stevie Wonder — they hadn’t yet worked with an artist-of-the-moment in the way Hakim did with Don Omar.
In a press release announcing the song in 2007, Hakim underscored his desire to try something new, sonically speaking.
“Adding my voice to that of one of the most talented and best-selling Latin artists will help me continue to grow,” he said at the time.
The song’s lyrics were written by the late Amal Al Tayer — and feature Don Omar and Hakim alternating verses in Spanish and Arabic, as they sing about their infatuation with a beautiful woman.
Don Omar immediately sets the tone in the opening lines of the song: “En una noche ‘e luna llena, conocí una sirena en el desierto que me dijo ‘tigi tigi.’” (This translates to: “On a full-moon night, I met a siren in the desert who said ‘tigi tigi’ to me.”)
The production features a fusion of reggaeton drum patterns and syncopated kicks with the Middle Eastern darbuka, as well as violins, which softly emanate a minor microtonal scale in the background.
Don Omar and Hakim further emphasize the cross-cultural nature of the song by using each other’s respective cultural productions. As Don Omar sings, the darbuka drum prominently plays in the song; when Hakim performs, he does so over a thumping dembow beat.
The song was officially released as a single for Hakim’s 2007 album of the same name. Don Omar again flew to Cairo, this time for a news conference with Hakim, to introduce the song and promote cross-cultural collaborations.
“Tigi Tigi” had been marketed as a song to combat racial discrimination — both artists stressed that it was meant to project unity across all ethnicities and races.
“In the United States, the Latin American people have received many forms of discrimination,” Don Omar shared with the Arab News Agency during the news conference. “Finding comfort in Hakim, in his music, in Egypt — it takes us back to a moment where we no longer want to talk about discrimination. We want to talk only about unity.”
Years later, amid the 2020 George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement, Hakim posted a clip on Instagram of him and Don Omar working together, with the caption: “No matter who we are or where we are from, we are still one.”
Although “Tigi Tigi” never reached the heights of their other songs on the pop charts, Hakim and Don Omar created a cult classic that continues to move listeners at any function. Hakim currently has no plans to tour in the States, but fans may still catch Don Omar on his Last King world tour, which includes a sold-out show at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Nov. 6.
The post Remember This Banger: Don Omar and Hakim’s Arab-Latino jam “Tigi Tigi” appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
