'My baby fiu fiu', the world phenomenon that viralized one of the thousand scandals of Peruvian politics

Peruvian musician and producer Tito Silva.Tito Silva Music (RR SS)

A romantic text about the alleged infidelity of a former president.

The melody of a song from two decades ago made popular by Dido and Eminem.

And an adaptation that has led the 30-year-old Peruvian musician Alberto Silva Reyes, better known as

to touch the roof of the internet.

It happened this week, when the

Ibai Llanos and the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, among other stars, mentioned and sang their ballad

, released on YouTube on May 20.

The song has since amassed more than 10 million views, and on Monday Spotify ranked it first in the Top 50 viral hits before pulling it for alleged copyright infringement.

The lyrics, Silva explained, borrow phrases from a text published in 2014 by Zully Pinchi, a former candidate for Congress who was involved in a media scandal when the press published screenshots of an alleged conversation, via WhatsApp, with former President Vizcarra.

From there comes, in fact, the very title of the song.

Based on the musical basis of the hit

Tefi Céspedes, Tito Silva's community manager and amateur singer, performs the song and stars in the video, recorded in a room whose walls have photos of the former president.

When the video began to go viral in Peru, the first week of June, Céspedes told a television program that from Pinchi's words they imagined the story of a girl who is disappointed when she realizes that she cannot be the one in love of the former president, because he is married.

Congress dismissed Vizcarra in November 2020, when he was facing a tax investigation for allegedly receiving bribes during his period as regional governor in 2014. Vizcarra ran for Parliament in 2021 and won a seat, but was disqualified from holding public office and could assume.

The song with which the Peruvian musician has achieved notoriety is one of many that combine his musical ability and his attention to current affairs in a country that has lived in an endless political crisis since March 2018.

In May 2019, when the Peruvian press was focused on a major corruption scandal in the Peruvian justice system due to the leaking of dozens of audios of telephone conversations between magistrates, litigants and politicians, Silva set one of those dialogues to music to the tune of

The today dismissed Supreme Judge and fugitive César Hinostroza was referring in that conversation to a meeting with “Mrs. K”, that is, the opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, who was waiting for an annulment from said judge so that they annul a fiscal investigation against her.

Spain ordered Hinostroza's extradition last week, but the lawyer has fled that country, a Peruvian anti-corruption prosecutor reported Tuesday.

The musician says that his followers help him decide which episodes of Peruvian politicians to musicalize, as they tag him on social media every time there are unfortunate phrases or events.

“I prefer not to give an opinion: I use irony a lot.

My language is through music,” he explained in a recent television interview.

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My baby fiu fiu - Tito Silva

On video, live performance of 'Mi bebito fiu fiu'. Video: Tito Silva

This latest success also comes six years after he recorded the Andean and reggaeton versions of the theme from the series

or the music of

in a cumbia arrangement.

In the midst of the covid quarantine, Silva performed

concerts from his home with the help of an audiovisual producer who placed him as a DJ on a stage with smoke effects, lighting, clapping hands and even street vendors: all made of pixels.

A life searching for music

Silva has told the Peruvian press that his grandmother instilled in him a love of music when he was a child and then he learned to play some instruments.

When he left school, he studied

for a couple of years but dropped out to study music production at another university.

One of his classmates from those years, Pedro Callán, has said that his friend worked in an orchestra to pay for his studies.

Silva spent almost five years creating music for series and composing advertising

at a production house in Lima, but he lost his job in the first year of the pandemic.

He then threw himself into what he started in 2016 and what inspired him the most, creating versions of songs and

—join the voices of artists who have never done a duet— and upload them to their networks.

In May 2020, at a very serious moment of the pandemic in Peru, he held his first

concert and in August, still in quarantine, he did another for the 146th anniversary of a district of Lima.

There she presented, among many creations, a

of the voice of the poet of the Generation of 50, Blanca Varela, with electronic music and, later, a version of Beethoven

in chicha, a Peruvian tropical genre.

Two years later, as he has pointed out in several recent interviews, he can live on what he earns from the content he creates.

Mexican

Luisito Comunica and

and

Kunno have also contributed to turning

into a global trend this week.

The first sang a fragment and commented that he would like to hear the metal version;

and the video of Kunno dancing to the theme exceeded 800,000 views.

version circulated on digital platforms.

of the ballad and it is not the first to appear in another genre.

In addition, official accounts on platform networks such as HBO and Netflix, that of the MTV channel and that of Real Madrid, to name a few, have taken the opportunity to also join the viral phenomenon.

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