T1 gave us Lou Bega.
David Lubega (a.k.a. Lou Bega) (born April 13, 1975), is an Italo-German and Ugandan musician famous for his song "Mambo No. 5". This song is a remake of the Perez Prado instrumental from 1952. Bega added his own words to the song and sampled the original version extensively. In the computer game
Tropico, Lou Bega is one of the characters a player can choose as their dictator persona. He was included as part of a licensing deal that also saw Bega's song "Club Elitaire" integrated into the German release of Tropico.
T1 also gave us Palido Jaquar.
Claremore, OK, resident John Grant will be featured as a character in the upcoming PC game, Tropico. ... Grant entered and won the "You Rule" contest sponsored through developer PopTop and publisher God Games. He will appear in the game as the dictator character, Palido Jaguar. Tropico has gone gold and will ship to stores nationwide on April 24, 2001.
A shortage of fun female dictators ??
Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, better known by the stage name
Carmen Miranda (February 9, 1909 – August 5, 1955) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer and actress most popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Her family moved to Brazil shortly after her birth. Famous for promoting Brazil in her role as an entertainer, Miranda was a Broadway star, one of the highest-paid artists in Hollywood, and by some accounts the highest-earning woman in the United States. She achieved stardom in motion pictures,
cast in musical roles and often wearing a hat topped with tropical fruit, most notably in
The Gang's All Here, which has become her iconic visual identity. She is considered the precursor of Brazil's tropicalismo.
Her Hollywood image was one of a generic Latinness that blurred the distinctions between Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico as well as between samba, tango and habanera. It was carefully stylized and outlandishly flamboyant. She was often shown wearing platform sandals and towering headdresses made of fruit, becoming famous as "the lady in the tutti-frutti hat." However there were times that Miranda performed barefoot on stage due to the fact she could move more easily in bare feet than the towering platform sandals. Miranda's enormous, fruit-laden hats are iconic visuals recognized around the world. These costumes lead to Saks Fifth Avenue developing a line of turbans and jewelry inspired by Carmen Miranda in 1939. Many costume jewelry designers made fruit jewelry also inspired by Carmen Miranda which is still highly valued and collectible by vintage and antique costume jewelry collectors. Fruit jewelry is still popular in jewelry design today. Much of the fruit jewelry seen today is often still fondly called "Carmen Miranda jewelry" because of this.
Brazilian singer Ney Matogrosso's album
Batuque brings the period and several of Miranda's early hits back to life in faithful style. Caetano Veloso paid tribute to Miranda for her early samba recordings made in Rio when he recorded "Disseram que Voltei Americanizada" on the live album
Circuladô Vivo in 1992. He also examined her iconic legacy of both kitsch and sincere samba artistry in an essay in the
New York Times. Additionally, on one of Veloso's most popular songs, "Tropicalia", Veloso sings "Viva a banda da da da....Carmem Miranda da da da" as the final lyrics of the song. Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett included a tribute to Carmen Miranda on his 1973 album
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, entitled "They Don't Dance Like Carmen No More." In the early 1970s a novelty act known as Daddy Dewdrop had a top 10 hit single in the US titled "Chick-A-Boom," one of Carmen's trademark song phrases, although the resemblance ended there. The band
Pink Martini recorded "Tempo perdido" for their
Hey Eugene! Album on 2007.
Haemimont should be able to handle the presidental hats for a female president who is advertising the fruit of
Tropico to the world. Perhaps they could even include an appropriate samba dance with music and singing.
In any case, this is a nomination for Carmen Miranda to join the pantheon of
Tropican Dictators.
