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."
