The singer is Muhammad Shahid Nazir who left his home town of Pattoki in Pakistan to study business in London. He took a part-time job selling fish to support himself. Bored with the usual prose to sell fish, he resorted to poetry, made up a song and started singing "Come on ladies, come on ladies, one pound fish. Very, very good one pound fish, very very cheap one pound fish."
Shoppers liked the song and it was recorded and uploaded by someone on YouTube. The song soon went viral and Warner Music offered Nazir a record deal. Now the record is vying for the top of charts this Christmas season.
International media have begun to focus their attention on "One Pound Fish" in the same way as they have on "Gangnam Style" dance video by a Korean man. Here are some excerpts of the media coverage "One Pound Fish" is getting:
Washington Post Style Blog:
It’s true that there are some common threads between the oddball pop songs. Both have brought forth unlikely stars: Psy, a portly rapper older than your typical Korean pop star, and now Nazir, a fishmonger in London’s Queens Market. They’ve quickly garnered millions of YouTube views —1.5 million since Monday for “One Pound Fish,” and more than 900 million for “Gangnam Style.” They’ve brought international music genres — K-pop and Bollywood-tinged Hindi-pop — to American listeners. And they both have a catchy and similar refrain: Psy’s “Heeeeey Sexy Ladies!” and Nazir’s “Come on ladies, come on ladies! One pound fish!” (it’s slightly reminiscent of another novelty hit, a snippet of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”).
Agence France Press (AFP):
A slicker version with Nazir shimmying and strutting Bollywood-style in a natty suit went up on December 10, launching the race to top the Christmas charts in Britain. The original video has had a staggering 4.6 million hits, while the professionally produced one already has more than two million. Nazir has also gained nearly 28,000 followers on Twitter. Back at the family home in Pattoki, a small town 146 miles (234 kilometres) south of Pakistan's capital Islamabad, his delighted 67-year-old mother Kalsoom says she is praying and fasting for Nazir's success.
Global BC TV:
“Come on ladies, come on—one pound fish!”
That’s just a taste of the lyrics sung by a London market trader who first gained local fame with his song “One Pound Fish.” Since then, he’s filmed a major-label music video, reaffirming the power of the Internet to catapult regular citizens to stardom.
Muhammad Shahid Nazir, who moved to London from Pakistan with his wife and four children, used the song to hook customers in his job at a market stall.
Nazir first appeared on YouTube, singing and gesturing, in spring 2012, in a video that went on to earn more than 4 million views. He embraced the attention, and soon after auditioned for the UK music competition show, The X-Factor.
His song was covered by music producer Timbaland as well as English star Alesha Dixon, and the UK’s Evening Standard called him a rival to South Korean rapper Psy (of “Gangnam Style” fame).
Huffington Post:
Thanks to the powers of YouTube, he's breaking into America with his music and finding audiences around the globe, with a Timbaland collaboration set to be released stateside in the near future!
Explaining how the phenomenon first sparked to life, Shahid tells us that while working as a fishmonger, he was required to find a way to attract customers to his store. Like everyone else, he tried the shouting method ("Have a look at the one pound fish!"), but that just turned people away.
The very next day, he decided to make up his own song. Thus, the unavoidably catchy, "Come on ladies, come on ladies, one pound fish," melody was born and ended up being completely successful in drawing positive attention to his store. Shahid says that shoppers would tell him, "You should go to 'X Factor.' You should go to 'Britain's Got Talent' and should be a pop star."
12 comments:
^^^"Washington Post Style Blog:
It’s true that there are.."
--
ACTUAL message of the Washington Post Style Blog:
Why ‘One Pound Fish’ is no ‘Gangnam Style’
A) It doesn’t have as distinctive a look
B) The video doesn’t take itself seriously enough
C) It’s too easy
The guys a star in UK right now: Below him in UK X Factor (watch from 02:50)
http://youtu.be/_uynr5vhCA4
Obama does One Pound Fish
http://youtu.be/nZADPHKZhpQ
Would someone please teach Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) to just block offending videos instead of the entire Youtube site!?
Noor: "Would someone please teach Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) to just block offending videos instead of the entire Youtube site!?"
It's so absurd that the entire Youtube site which carries a lot of online educational videos like the Khan Academy tutorials is being blocked for just one offending video. PTA is doing a great disservice to the people of Pakistan by its stupidity.
The revolutionary Khan Academy is a brainchild of Bangladeshi-American Salman Khan. Before the ban, it WAS growing in popularity among Pakistanis wishing to take advantage of "Free World Class Education" offered online via short 10-15 minute videos. The subjects range from math, physics, chemistry and biology to astronomy, history, economics, finance, engineering and medicine. Khan counts Microsoft founder Bill Gates among his fans and students. Gates has described Sal Khan as his favorite teacher, and Gates Foundation has provided funding to enable Khan Academy to grow.
http://www.riazhaq.com/2012/03/khan-academy-draws-pakistani-visitors.html
You are absolutely right about Khan Academy. There are various undergrad and grad level online courses offered through Youtube by premier universities, including Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Berekeley, Cambridge, Oxford, Duke, Chicago to name a few.
RH: "The revolutionary Khan Academy is a brainchild of Bangladeshi-American Salman Khan."
http://www.riazhaq.com/2012/03/khan-academy-draws-pakistani-visitors.html
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What does your hero "Sal" Khan have to say about all this?
http://alturl.com/9vhwy
http://alturl.com/f4bpj
http://alturl.com/viakf
Does he agree with your view?
I saw the video. Why it needs to be blocked ? What is so offending about it ?
Taj: "I saw the video. Why it needs to be blocked ? What is so offending about it ?"
Here we're talking about a Youtube video "Innocence of Muslims" which mocked Prophet Muhammad. Instead of selectively blocking this one video to pacify angry rioters in Pakistan, PTA decided to block the entire top domain of Youtube.
You can read more about it at http://www.riazhaq.com/2012/09/globalization-of-wests-hate-speech.html
Here's NY Times on Pakistan unblocking YouTube:
Pakistan’s interior minister announced on Friday that the country plans to lift a ban on YouTube that was imposed in September, following violent protests over a crude anti-Islam film uploaded to the site by an Egyptian-American. The government acted to rescind the ban just hours after the star of one of the year’s most popular YouTube videos, a singing Pakistani fishmonger, was given a hero’s welcome upon his return to the city of Lahore from Britain.
The minister, Rehman Malik, revealed the news in a series of updates to his Twitter feed, in which he said that Pakistanis should be able to access the site within 24 hours and congratulated the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on finding ways to “block anti-Islamic material.”
Mr. Malik’s comments were published one day after the Pakistani star of the viral video was given an elaborate welcome in Lahore. According to a report in Friday’s edition of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation:
Hundreds showed up at Lahore airport to honor Muhammad Shahid Nazir, who scaled the British music charts with “One Pound Fish,” which he originally composed to entice shoppers at the East London market where he worked. The song became a YouTube hit after someone filmed Nazir singing it at the market and Warner Music signed him up for a record deal in the hope of getting the coveted Christmas-number-one spot in the charts.
Mr. Nazir owes his stardom to a freelance Web designer’s YouTube clip of the fishmonger singing his “One Pound Fish” tune at a market in London’s Upton Park in March. The video of that performance has been viewed more than seven million times.
Mr. Malik’s comments were published one day after the Pakistani star of the viral video was given an elaborate welcome in Lahore. According to a report in Friday’s edition of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation:
Hundreds showed up at Lahore airport to honor Muhammad Shahid Nazir, who scaled the British music charts with “One Pound Fish,” which he originally composed to entice shoppers at the East London market where he worked. The song became a YouTube hit after someone filmed Nazir singing it at the market and Warner Music signed him up for a record deal in the hope of getting the coveted Christmas-number-one spot in the charts.
Mr. Nazir owes his stardom to a freelance Web designer’s YouTube clip of the fishmonger singing his “One Pound Fish” tune at a market in London’s Upton Park in March. The video of that performance has been viewed more than seven million times.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/pakistan-to-lift-youtube-ban-as-a-viral-video-star-is-welcomed-home/
#Islamabad #ChaiWala (tea-seller) is instant #socialmedia sensation in #India, #Pakistan. Signs modeling contract
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/blue-eyed-tea-seller-arshad-khan-becomes-social-media-sensation-in-india-and-pakistan
A blue-eyed tea-seller from Islamabad has scored a modelling contract after featuring in an Instagram post that went viral.
Even more unlikely, the 18-year-old’s picture topped trending lists across Indian social media, warming an icy patch between the neighbours that has included calls for Pakistani actors to be banned from the Indian film industry.
Photographer Jiah Ali snapped the chai-wallah at a bazaar in the Pakistani capital on Sunday. Her Instagram post spread to Twitter and Facebook and kicked off a search for the name of the vendor.
He was identified on Tuesday as Arshad Khan, a teenager from Kohat district, who had been making tea at the Itwar Bazaar for three months.
Khan told the Dawn newspaper his first inkling of the scale of his fame was when he spotted local boys with flyers depicting his face. He was also mobbed by media outlets clamouring for an interview.
He told local media he was flattered by the attention but, ever the professional, said he preferred people not to shoot his picture while he worked.
On Wednesday a savvy online retailer, Fitin.Pk, seized on Khan’s sudden fame to sign him up to model a range of its clothes.
His picture – and posts swooning over it – were shared worldwide across social media, including in India, where ire towards the Pakistani government is running high after militants in Kashmir killed 19 Indian troops last month.
Spotify Turns Up the Volume in Pakistan With Events and Music Campaigns
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2023-04-06/spotify-turns-up-the-volume-in-pakistan-with-events-and-music-campaigns/
Two years ago, we introduced Spotify to listeners in Pakistan. Since the launch, we’ve worked with the country’s artists to expand their reach and share their music with new fans worldwide—and now we’re taking things to a new level.
March marked the first anniversary of our EQUAL women’s empowerment program in Pakistan, with singer Tina Sani as the Ambassador of the Month. RADAR, which highlights emerging artists from all around the world, also recently made its debut in Pakistan, featuring Taha G up first. He’s at the top of the RADAR Pakistan playlist, and Spotify worked with the singer to create a mini-documentary that spotlights his life and career.
In addition to bringing these programs to the region, we’re finding unique ways—from Masterclasses to cricket campaigns to local playlists—to connect with artists.
Lending artists support with a Masterclass in Lahore
Our music industry experts were ready to share their knowledge during a Spotify for Artists Masterclass event in Lahore, PK. “We hosted at the historical Haveli Barood Khana mansion, and used this opportunity to educate and share information on music streaming trends and new product features with the burgeoning music industry in the region,” shared Khan FM, Artist and Label Partnerships Manager for Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Renowned Coke Studio music producer, curator and artist Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan shared his perspective on the Pakistani music industry with an audience that included more than 150 artists and their teams.
Spotify gets in the cricket spirit
“Cricket is huge in Pakistan, and Spotify highlighted the nation’s love for the game by launching a cricket marketing campaign and digging into the data* of the popular Cricket Fever playlist,” shared Talha Hashim, Marketing Manager for Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The curated collection has seen a staggering 611% increase in streams since the beginning of Pakistan Super League 08 (PSL) this year. Among other trends, we noticed:
Karachi is the top city streaming the playlist.
Tuesdays and evenings are when the playlist sees the most streams.
Top songs include “Groove Mera – Pakistan Super League” by Aima Baig, Naseebo Lal, and Young Stunners and “Agay Dekh (Pakistan Super League)” by Atif Aslam and Aima Baig.
Celebrating local artists with Pakka Hit Hai
The Pakka Hit Hai playlist is the go-to Spotify destination for Pakistan’s top hits. “The playlist first launched in 2022 and has seen incredible growth and popularity since its inception. To celebrate, Spotify partnered with COLABS for a concert series called Pakka Hit Hai Live,” said Rutaba Yaqub, Senior Editor for Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The first show featured Fresh Finds success Abdul Hannan and Taha G, two of the best-performing artists on the playlist. Bringing the playlist to more fans through live events is one way we’re expanding its reach.
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