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Monday, December 11, 2023

The Spanish Language Children's Song "Chocolate" ("Bate Bate Chocolate") Videos, Information, & lyrics



Smithsonian Folkways, Oct. 9, 2015

1 comment:

  1. I just learned about the Mexican song & rhyme "Chocolate" as a result of surfing YouTube for children's rhymes.

    That search also led to the German duo Soul Control's 2004 hit song "Chocolate (Chocolate (Choco Choco)".. Apparently that song was a big hit in Europe and in some other parts of the world, but not in the United States. I think some of the lyrics might have something to do with that such as the beginning of that song:
    " Whoaaa!
    Everybody in the world likes chocolate
    Oooh, we love it!
    Oh, it makes you happy
    Yeah, it gets you sexy
    It makes you fat but we don't care about that
    Now, come on!"...
    -snip-
    In addition, that song's official YouTube video is an animated piece that shows the Soul Patrol duo (of a White man who was born in Germany and a Black man who was born in Sierra Leone but lives in Germany) dancing and singing in various scenes throughout the world that are full of stereotypical depictions of people and images of young women with big boobs and skimpy bikini tops.

    In spite of those lyrics, it seems that this song was (and still is) directed to children and a lot of commenters in the YouTube discussion threads about that song (particularly from Europe) wrote in the comments threads for two of the Soul Control videos that they have fond childhood memories of Soul Control's "Chocolate (Choco Choco)" song.

    That song uses the tune to "La Bama" which might have helped its popularity. But what interests me is that the singers use the Spanish pronunciation of the word "chocolate" and the lyrics include the Spanish words "uno", "dos", "tres" and no one in the three YouTube discussion threads that I read for that song shared that that song was based on the Mexican folk song and rhyme "Chocolate". Strange...

    Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Control for information about Soul Control & "Chocolate (Choco Choco)". Also, click https://genius.com/Soul-control-chocolate-lyrics to read the lyrics for that song.

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