Enrique Iglesias Mixes Spanish and English

Enrique Iglesias "I like it"

Inspired by the Kun article, the first song I thought of was Enrique Iglesias' "I like it" because well, I like the song, and mainly because of the sprinkling of Spanish that Iglesias uses in his extremely popular pop/club song. I am currently taking Spanish and so was excited by the sudden appearance of a few Spanish words that I actually understand, but there is not all that much Spanish in the song (although when I went to look for it on Youtube the commercial that came up was in Spanish for McDonald's). This song represents for me a kind of cultural crossover, similar to that described in Kun's article as he describes Akwid, but different because of the audience that "I like it" reached and the genre of music it represents.

The song is not particularly profound, and the video is even less, which is why I posted the video just with the lyrics, as the lyrics are what I'm interested in. The Enrique Iglesias section does not involve much Spanish apart from the use of the word "fiesta" (though I had thought initially that he said "prueba"--exam--rather than "forever" which confused me) but the Pitbull rap section includes a bit more Spanish "pa' fuera, pa' la calle/dale mamita tírame ese baile".

I didn't know much about Iglesias as a person or as a musician, but a quick Wikipedia search is very telling. Iglesias is originally from Spain but has become extremely popular with the Latin American community and is considered a Latin Pop star. His earlier works were mainly in Spanish, but he has done English songs, and according to Wikipedia "I like it" is from his first bilingual English/Spanish album (Euphoria), which came out last year in 2010. I chose this song as I said because I do, in fact, like it, but also because it is one of the most popular of Iglesias' songs and also because it reached an extremely large audience as it was amongst the most popular songs in 2010 and reached the top or close to the top on many a Billboard chart.

Unlike Akwid's song, "I like it" represents mainstream pop and club music, meaning it is played not only on Mexican or Spanish language stations or stations that realize they cater to Spanish language listeners, but people all over the country and all over the world. That being said, it is interesting that Iglesias is able to mix Spanish and English so fluidly, crossing between the two worlds that he had previously successfully inhabited separately, and create a song that is extremely popular in the United States and elsewhere, marketed as an "English" song but with sneaky bits of Spanish that belie the fusion of cultures in America.