‘Hips Don’t Lie’: an oldie, I know, but it’s a pretty kick-arse example of what can happen when you mash up different songs and styles (instrumentals from Jerry Rivera’s romantic, nostalgic salsa ‘Amores como el nuestro’ and lyrics from Luis Díaz’s merengue ‘Carnaval (Baila en la calle)’, as well as the song’s previous incarnation as Wyclef Jean and R&B singer Claudette Ortiz’s ‘Dance like this’) — not to mention a great example, via the video, of what exactly can be done with a set of hips (for more mind-boggling moves, revisit Shakira’s ‘La tortura‘).

Anyway, the ipod, which was on shuffle while I was throwing together a meal last night, started playing ‘Hips Don’t Lie’. It seemed an age since I’d heard it. At one particular lyric, I was struck by a whole bundle of emotions that culminated in sadness:

Refugees run the seas ’cause we own our own boats

Just listen to how Wyclef Jean sings it — confidently, yet it’s shot through with naiveté and irony. First there’s the surprise and delight at the concept (it’s an original take on the situation, after all), and then the lament at the lack of awareness that such a statement embodies.

It’s an attempt at attributing power and dignity to the powerless, a re-interpretation of the North American ideal of individualism, i.e. the myth of the self-made man, and a nod to capitalism, while at the same time it demonstrates the lack of agency and opportunity for such subaltern people. It’s about viewing the world through the limited field of what you can take charge of, rather than criticising the structures or circumstances that have caused you to be in that situation. This, in the immediate sense, gives a greater feeling of power and autonomy, even if it doesn’t change anything in the long run. There’s a lot going on, then, on a number of levels, in that one line of song. And yet it’s all transmitted to me on an emotional level in no more than the time it takes to hear it. A pretty deft sleight of hand, no?

And, of course, there’s intertextuality going on there, not just in the number of songs that ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ references musically and lyrically, but also the ones it references thematically: it has echoes of Juan Luis Guerra’s ‘Visa para un sueño‘, for example, a merengue that details the bureaucratic process of applying for (and being denied) a visa, and the lengths undertaken afterwards.

It really got me. And it reminded me that there are lessons and brilliance to be found in all art forms, even if you do usually experience that art form in the context of shaking your thing.