The eternally young party guy “Cotton Eye Joe” continues to attract crowds.
With three billion views on YouTube in less than a month, the viral clip with the song has now broken a world record.
– We have contacted Guinness World Records, says Pat Reiniz, co-founder of the band Rednex.
“Cotton Eye Joe” hit with a bang when it was released almost 30 years ago. The song is the basis of the viral phenomenon Gedagedigedagedago, which has been played three billion times on YouTube in the last 26 days – a new world record.
That’s 28 times more plays than the most viewed music video on YouTube, 13 times more plays than the global number one on Spotify and twice as many as the most played artist in the world, Alka Yagnik.
“Rednex is the world’s most played artist”
The song racked up a billion plays in just eight days. For world star Adele, who holds the previous record with her hit “Hello”, it took 87 days.
– Right now, Rednex is the world’s most played artist. We have contacted Guinness World Records,” says Täby-born Pat Reiniz, co-founder of the band and producer of the original version from 1994 in a press release.
For the Eurodance band, the recent huge spread has come as a shock.
– The whole team just sits and gapes, pinches their arms and is beyond comprehension. The numbers are of such a magnitude that hardly anyone believes us. We would like someone to do it so we can start celebrating, says Pat Reiniz.
Chicken nugget dances loose
The new trend got its start when the Danish singer Razi Irawani wrote the nonsense text “Gedagedigedagedago” and set it to music with the Rednex dängen. The clip went viral on the artist’s own Tiktok account.
The trend was further spread when a clip of an animated chicken nugget dancing to the song was released. Today, over 500 such clips that have been shared on YouTube have received over a million views.
Twelve percent of all the platform’s users are currently said to have played the clip – which corresponds to four percent of the world’s population.
Now Rednex have taken the opportunity and released a new version of the song themselves together with a new party song, Another Round, where the music video features a bunch of pensioners who get super drunk.