She’s tantalized us all summer. First, there was the new album with the soon-to-be hit single, “Round Run.” Then there was the trailer for the music video.
Now -- undeterred by a few scandals about Billboard not actually declaring Googoosha a hit -- we have the real thing: Move over VH1, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s strongman, Islam Karimov, is on YouTube.
Rolling around Bukhara in a classic Chaika limousine, Gulnara Karimova is waiting for her black-clad ninja man as he runs “round and round,” scaling walls, jumping and skipping across the fabled UNESCO world heritage site to an exclusive rendezvous with the princess of pop (and the country). It’s the Matrix meets James Bond playing capture the flag.
Googoosha sure knows how to build up the suspense. While you may not often see a low-cut dress in an Islamic holy place, Googoosha owns it, baby.
As for the music? Googoosha calls her song a “dance floor pumper” from an “exotic potpourri of sounds and a personal testimony to the power of deeply felt emotions.” While some might feel the 90s-style synthpop better relegated to a sticky Tashkent nightclub, we’ll let viewers decide.
**An earlier version of this blog misidentified Googoosha's limousine as a Volga. It looks instead to be a Chaika, which was made by the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ), the manufacturer of the Volga. Thanks to a hawk-eyed reader for pointing out the error.
David Trilling is Eurasianet’s managing editor.
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