Format Digital download Label Machete | Length 3:19 | |
Released August 15, 2010 (2010-08-15) Genre Dance, reggaeton, kuduro Writer(s) William Landrón, Philippe Louis De Oliveira, Faouze Barkati, Ryfns, Fabrice Toigo | ||
"Danza Kuduro" is a Spanish/Portuguese-language hit song from Don Omar's collaborative album Meet the Orphans released as the lead single from the album on August 15, 2010 through Machete Music and VI Music. It features singer Lucenzo, a French artist of Portuguese descent. "Danza Kuduro" was number one on the Hot Latin Songs, giving Don Omar his second US Billboard Hot Latin Songs number-one hit and Lucenzo his first. A remake of the song is also featured in the 2011 movie Fast Five as an ending song and is on the film's soundtrack album. Kuduro is a style of dancing and singing from Angola.
Contents
Background
The song is written by Lucenzo who is also producer of the song. It features a section in Portuguese taken from the Lucenzo dance hit entitled "Vem dançar kuduro" featuring Big Ali. The remainder is sung by Don Omar in Spanish. Kuduro is an Angolan type of music also very popular in Portugal.
Critical reception
Amar Toor from Aol Radio Blog said that the song "showcases one of reggaeton's brightest stars at his absolute best. [...] Don Omar's song is so infectious, it will likely get buried in your mind after just one listen -- and trust us, that's a very good thing".
Monica Herrera from Billboard said "The propulsive beat is laced with crowd-pleasing electric accordion runs, over which Don Omar sings and raps about a simple yet evergreen concept: dancing up a storm. The song wisely shifts him toward more tropical-leaning material-a move all too familiar in reggaetón's post-boom era-while letting him continue to explore new sounds and maintain his hold over Latin dancefloors around the world." Allison Stewart from The Washington Post said that the song "exemplifies what Omar and company do best: It's a sunny, up-tempo, utterly winning variation on Latin dance pop. 'Orphans' otherwise contains seemingly infinite variations on reggaeton, though there's nothing else as great as the standard genre track 'Hasta Abajo', which appears here in un-remixed form". At the Latin Grammy Awards of 2011, "Danza Kuduro" received a nomination for Best Urban Song. It won the Billboard Latin Music Award for Latin Rhythm Airplay Song of the Year in 2011 and 2012.
Commercial performance
The song debuted at number 48 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs. One week later, the song debuted at number 34 on the Tropical Songs. The song has become Don Omar's second number-one hit on the Billboard Latin Songs, and also topped the Latin Rhythm Songs, Latin Tropical Songs. On the Venezuelan Airplay Chart from the Record Report, the song also reached the top of the Latin Chart, and peaked at number 2 on the main Top 100 Chart. Due to heavy airplay and strong sales in the US, on the issue of May 21, 2011 the song debuted at number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 93 on the Canadian Hot 100. It has sold over a million digital copies in the US by October 2012.
According to Universal Records, the single became a worldwide hit, reaching No. 1 in Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Romania, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and on the US Hot Latin Songs chart, and making the top 5 in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Chile, Central America, Denmark, and Norway. The single has found greater success especially in Italy where it topped the charts for 10 straight weeks.
The song was released in the UK in October 2011 and entered the UK Singles Chart at #13 on 6 November.
Music video
A music video was filmed on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, and was directed by music video director Vincent Egret, who has directed most of Lucenzo's recent videos. Production/Post supervised by Frederico Panetta and his team (4brostudio) Marc-Olivier Jean, Anderson Jean, Dullin Jean, Fayolle Jean Jr. did the post-production of the music video.
The video shows the singers boasting of all the wealth of a millionaire. It portrays Don Omar inviting Lucenzo to a boat ride, and picking him up in a BMW Z4. Also there are scenes of women dancing around the two artists on the beach. Before the video premiere, a preview of the video was released on July 30, 2010 through Omar's Facebook account.
The full music video was premiered on August 17, 2010 through Vevo. There were more than 1 million views within the first few days of its release, making “Danza Kuduro” the #3 Most Seen Video in the World. As of February 2017, the music video had received over 870 million views on YouTube.
The upload of "Danza Kuduro" is not available for worldwide view, due to YouTube geolocation restriction in certain countries, including in Europe.
Remixes
Samples and covers