Mother Jones
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Over the weekend, Latino Mix 105.7, a Univision-owned radio station in San Francisco, captured the hearts and lazy imagination of the internet. “There once was a film called Life is Beautiful about Nelly’s ‘Hot in Herre‘ being looped on a radio station for 24 straight hours and now that movie has come to life,” gushed Gawker. (Life is Beautiful is actually a movie about the Holocaust and the enduring love of family.) In the widely covered stunt, the station started playing “Hot in Herre” sic around 3 p.m. PST on Friday and then just… kept going. The song wasn’t taken off repeat until Monday evening, shortly after 5 p.m. PST. “San Francisco radio station Latino Mix FM 105.7 has been doing its best to torture Bay Area listeners,” the San Jose Mercury News reported on Monday.
“Hot in Herre” (click here for lyrics) was a smash-hit song for St. Louis rapper Nelly in 2002. It was described as “the perfect summer jam” by People. It’s a song so inextricably tied to the early Bush era that you can read about US Marines singing it as they moved into combat in Iraq. (This moment, from journalist Evan Wright’s book Generation Kill, was recreated in the HBO miniseries of the same name.) The song was featured in a 2012 Super Bowl ad starring Elton John as a tyrannical but violently overthrown king.
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