What Is The Song In The Grubhub Delivery Dance Commercial?
Grubhub has been having a rough few months. In April 2020, the food delivery app company was sued, along with other delivery companies, for allegedly monopolistic behavior in forcing restaurants to sign contracts that disproportionately benefit the companies and unfairly pass the cost on to restaurants and patrons. In October, Grubhub was sued again, this time for allegedly listing restaurants on its platform without the restaurants' permission. And now, its latest commercial is getting mercilessly memed upon.
The "Delivery Dance" ad, which began airing in November, features animated characters doing celebratory dances with a lot –- a lot –- of hip movement after getting salads or sushi or whatever delivered via Grubhub. People really seem to hate the cringey commercial, which has led to creative folks uploading their own mocking remixes and recreations of the ad to YouTube. Comments have been turned off on the YouTube page for the ad itself, which has 5 million views, 80 thousand likes, and 311 thousand dislikes. Distractify called the ad "one of the first big memes of 2021." Grubhub itself took the "I'm not owned!" position and tried to join in on the memes in a self-referential way.
Caught in the crossfire of all this memeing is Colombian pop band Bomba Estéreo, whose 2015 song "Soy Yo" provides the soundtrack to the spot.
Here's the song that makes the cartoons dance
"Soy Yo" had a long, successful life before it got Grubhubbed. The song's music video, which features a little girl dancing and standing up to bullies and celebrating herself on the streets of Brooklyn, has over 100 million views on YouTube. The song was called "a symbol of proud Latinidad" by the Washington Post. It's appeared in many movies and video games, including Pitch Perfect 3, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, FIFA 16, and Just Dance 2020.
The song appeared on the album Amanecer, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Rock, Urban, or Alternative Album, as well as a Latin Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. Rolling Stone named it the best Latin album of 2015, calling it "an electrifying, Latin-pop wake-up call."
Bomba Estéreo hasn't responded to the memes, so we don't know how the band's members feel about what's happened to the song. But a comment on YouTube might speak for how they're feeling: "Imagine you're a musician who's spent years trying to perfect your craft... and the thing people will remember you most for is making the song for the most hated advertisement of the millennium." Hopefully they charged Grubhub many thousands of dollars, plus fees.