Was ist tanz?
If you spend time scrolling through TikTok, you might have heard a German rap going viral.
Most people on the platform admit they have no clue what the words mean, but they can’t get it out of their heads.
Turns out, it’s not even a real rap.
The catchy song is actually a German tongue twister called “Barbaras Rhabarberbar,” or “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar,” about a woman named Barbara and her rhubarb cakes.
Musical comedian Bodo Wartke and content creator Marti Fischer took the tongue twister and morphed it into a rap that has since been turned into a dance and gone viral.
The original video of Wartke and Fischer recording the rap was posted in December and has since garnered 34.4 million views on the two-part release on TikTok, as well as 3.5 million views on YouTube.
TikTok content creators @steph_who___ and @Christina Stasii created a dance for the song, writing over the video, “You have a song you can’t even understand stuck 24/7.”
The song and dance quickly spread throughout the platform, especially after popular TikTok choreographers @Cost n’ Mayor and @KayCee Stroh participated in the trend.
Wartke and Fischer even got in the trend, coming full circle and dancing to the rap they made.
The translated lyrics: “Once upon a time in a small village lived a girl called Barbara, and Barbara was known in the entire country for her abnormally good rhubarb cake. Yes, you could say that Barbara’s rhubarb cake was an unconditionally magical experience. Abracadabra. Yes, this case was almost bombastic and after, its demand increased drastically.
“In the same year Barbara opened a bar and called it ‘Barbara’s Rhabarber Bar.’ In the village there were also a couple barbarians, they found out about Barbara’s rhubarb bar and because after that they were with Barbara daily, they were soon called the rhubarb bar barbarians.
“In the following years the barbarians stopped their barbaric behavior. They were, claimed Barbara, almost friendlier than Barbapapa, but the barbarians were very hairy and they all had a scrubby barbarian beard — not special at all. Consequently, Barbara sent her barbarian friends to the barbarian beard barber. He even shaved the barbarians’ entire heads. He was indeed a terrible chatterbox, but after that the beard was totally tiptop.”