“Zigga zigga zigga zigga.” If all goes well, that’ll be bouncing through your noggin for a couple hours. YehMe2 has constructed a crazy remix out of a song that I would have happily left in the past. Though to be fair, “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls is one of those songs you’d publicly scoff at, but if it plays on the radio while you’re alone in your car you’d let it play for a few seconds longer than you’d like to admit.
Who is YehMe2, you ask? Ever hear of Flosstradamus? Of course you have. Josh Young, 50% of Flosstradamus, announced in early 2017 that he wanted to pursue a solo career under the name YehMe2. He says that the reason for the split was to allow him to expand creatively and that there was no bad blood between him and Curt Cameruci, the other 50% of Flosstradamus. Curt is continuing to produce under the Flosstradamus name but is now doing it solo.
Over the course of two years, YehMe2 has had more than enough time to carve out a niche for himself with songs like this. I love how the bassline is held in the second verse (2:06) which also features new samples and a modified “Ziggazigga” to avoid monotony.
But what is “Ziggazigga” really? It’s an odd phrase, and I like to be educated about what I might be singing or supporting, so I looked it up.
In the original song, the pre-chorus ends with “I really […] wanna zig-a-zig ah.” From the context, listeners assumed that “zig-a-zig ah” meant to cut loose and have a good time. It wasn’t until decades after the song was released that the Spice Girls revealed the origin of the word. They stated that it was the nickname they had given to a music artist who was upset because he believed the Spice Girls were encroaching on his territory (“boy band” music). He would frequently use their shared bathroom to literally have a “shit and cigar” which one of the Spice Girls stylized to “zig-a-zig ah.” With that in mind, the original song now reads, “I really […] want a shit and cigar.”
That could potentially still mean to cut loose and relax in a roundabout way. But I enjoy the fact that thousands of people sang those lyrics while unsuspectingly saying that they wanted a “shit and cigar.”
