Four or five times a week on these days, some old friend would contact Louis Theroux and tell him, “My daughter just hangs around your rap theater” or “My wife is doing rap exercises yours in her Pilates class.” Passing an elementary school, Mr. Theroux had the feeling he was being watched, a feeling confirmed when he heard a child call behind him: “Don’t sway my money.”
His agent has made dozens of requests for personal appearances and offers to perform. Mr Theroux, a 52-year-old British-American documentary filmmaker with a somewhat nervous, bookish demeanor, turned it all down, especially because, as he said in a video interview from his home in London, “I’m not trying to be a rapper. “
But in a way, he has: Mr. Theroux is the man behind “Jiggle Jiggle,” a video featured on TikTok and YouTube, where it has been streamed hundreds of millions of times. He presents the rap in a soft voice that bears the hallmarks of his Oxford upbringing, creating a humorous quote “My money doesn’t wiggle, it folds / I want to see you wiggle.” , swaying, that’s for sure.”
For Mr. Theroux, son of the American author Paul Theroux and a cousin of actor Justin Theroux, the entire episode has become odd and a little unsettling. “I’m glad everyone is enjoying the rap part,” he said. “At the same time, there is a part of me that has mixed emotions. It’s been a bittersweet experience to experience a viral moment of breakthrough through something that, on the surface, seems disposable and doesn’t align with what I actually do in my work. me. But we are there. ”
The story of how the middle-aged father of three captures youth culture with a refreshing rap is “a puzzling 21st-century example of the weirdness of the world we live in,” he said. Theroux said.
“Jiggle Jiggle” gesture for many years before it became all the rage. It started in 2000, when Mr Theroux was hosting “Louis Theroux’s Strange Weekends,” a BBC Two series in which he delved into different subcultures. Because an episode in the third and final season, he travels to the American South, where he meets several rappers, including Master P. For the part of the show, he decides to rap himself, but he had only a few sketchy lines: “Jiggle Jiggle / I love it when you sway / It makes me want to drool / You like a somersault? ”
He invited Reese & Bigalow, a rap duo in Jackson, Miss., to help him fix it into shape. Bigalow cleaned up the opening lines and associated the word “jiggle” with the word “jingle” to suggest the sound of coins in your pocket. Reese asked what kind of car he drove. His reply – Fiat Tipo – resulted in the lines, “Riding in my Fiat / You really have to see it / Six feet-two in a compact / No sag but luckily the seat did return.”
Theroux said: “Reese & Bigalow delivered the rap quality with real quality. “Things that make it special, I could never write down on my own. At the risk of analyzing it as a whole, the genius part of it, in my mind, is saying, ‘My money doesn’t sway, it’s urgent. ‘ There’s something very pleasing about the rhythm of those words. “
He filmed himself performing the song live on New Orleans hip-hop station Q93, and BBC audiences witnessed his rap debut when the episode aired in the fall of 2000. It could have been the end of “Jiggle Jiggle” – but “Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends” took on new life in 2016, when Netflix licensed the show and started streaming it on Netflix UK. The rap has become a movie favourite, and whenever Mr. Theroux announces a new project, interviewers are sure to ask him about his hip-hop foray.
In February of this year, while promoting a new show, “Louis Theroux’s Forbidden AmericaMr. Theroux sat down for an interview on the popular web talk show “Chicken Shop Date,Hosted by London comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg.
“Can you remember any rap you did?” Mrs. Dimoldenberg asked, prompting Mr. Theroux to zoom into his rhyme in what he describes as “my somewhat unruly and unruly English delivery”.
“What happened next is the most mysterious part,” he added.
Luke Conibear and Isaac McKelvey, a DJ-producer pair in Manchester, England, known as Duke & Jones, extract the audio from the “Chicken Shop Date” and set it to an accompaniment with a pleasant beat. Then they upload the song to their YouTube account, where it has 12 million views and continues to grow.
But “Jiggle Jiggle” became a phenomenon largely thanks to Jess Qualter and Brooke Blewitt, 21 years old graduated from Laine Theater Arts, a performing arts college in Surrey, England. In April, two friends were making pasta at their shared apartment when they heard the song and rushed to choreograph the moves that were appropriate for the track — basketball tricks, steering wheel spins — and the “Jiggle” dance. Jiggle” was born.
Wearing sweatshirts with hoods and shades (an outfit chosen because they don’t wear makeup, the women said in an interview), Mrs. Qualter and Ms. Blewitt performed a video is 27 seconds long their implementation processes. It blew up shortly after Miss Qualter posted it on TikTok. Copying videos soon emerged from TikTok users around the world.
“All of this happened without me knowing about it,” Mr. Theroux said. “I got an email: ‘Hey, a remix of the rap you did on ‘Chicken Shop Date’ is going viral and doing phenomenal things on TikTok.” I was, like, “Wow, that’s it. It’s funny and weird.”
It exploded out of TikTok and became a popular trend last month, when Shakira performing “Jiggle Jiggle .”“Dance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Snoop Dogg, Megan Thee Stallion and Rita Ora have all posted themselves dancing to it. Cast of Downton Abbey jiggle-jiggled at a red carpet event.
“Anthony Hopkins just did one thing yesterday,” said Mr. Theroux. “It would be too much to call it a dance. It’s like a convulsion. But what is he doing? anything else. ”
The entire episode made his three children strange, especially his 14-year-old son who has grown into TikTok. “Why is my dad, the most wretched man in the universe, everywhere on TikTok? ”” Mr. Theroux said, giving his son his reaction.
“I left my stank on his timeline,” he continued. “I think that made him very confused and a bit frustrated.”
Miss Qualter and Miss Blewitt found it equally bizarre to see Shakira and the others dance to their dance moves. “I almost forgot we made it,” Ms. Qualter said. “It’s not like it happened. It has had more than 60 million views. We see the number on the screen, but I can’t understand that there are people behind it.”
After the original Duke & Jones remix went viral – which featured vocals taken from “Chicken Shop Date” – the DJ-producer duo asked Mr. Theroux to re-do his vocals in a room. collect. That way, instead of just another TikTok worm, “Jiggle Jiggle” can be made available on Spotify, iTunes, and other platforms, and its makers can profit from it. .
In addition to Mr. Theroux, five composers are credited on the official release: Duke & Jones; Reese & Bigalow; and 81-year-old smasher Neil Diamond. Mr. Diamond became part of the ensemble when his agent signed on to “Jiggle Jiggle,” a rendition of his 1967 song “Red Red Wine” in the part where Mr. Theroux’s auto-tuning voice sang. from “red, red wine”. The song hit the Spotify viral chart globally last month.
So does this mean real money?
“I really hope we can all make some swings out of this phenomenon. Or maybe some folding,” said Mr. Theroux. “So far, it’s been done more towards the end of the jiggle.”
During his documentary making career, Mr. Theroux explored the worlds of male porn stars, the Church of Scientology, right-wing militia groups and drug addicts. In his new BBC series, “Forbidden America”, Mr Theroux examines the impact of social media on the entertainment industry and politics. Years before Netflix had a hit show centered on Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as the Tiger King, Mr. Theroux made a movie about him. American documentarian John Wilson, creator and star of “How to be with John Wilson“Cited him as an influence.
Now the content of his work has been overshadowed, at least temporarily, by “Jiggle Jiggle.” And like many viral people, Mr. Theroux found himself trying to understand what had just happened and figure out what he had to do with this nascent cultural capital.
“It’s not like I have a catalog and, like, now I can release all of my other novelty raps,” he said. “I’m obviously not going to tour it. ‘Go and see Mr. Jiggle yourself.’ It will be a 20-second gig. “
