I plan to visit in coming months: Blogger Shady Shae on his YouTube videos, love towards Armenian music, Armenia

14:31, May 9

By Syune Arakelyan

Nigerian blogger, YouTuber, musician, and dancer Shady Shae (Shady Williams) has become popular among Armenians with his reaction to music videos on Armenian songs. Everything started when one of his followers sent him Brunette's Eurovision 2023 song “Future Lover,” asking to make a video on it. Since then, the blogger got interested in Armenian singers and fell in love with Armenia. Shady says he even plans to visit Armenia.

"When I started my blog, I had no idea it would interest people, I thought it was hopeless, but still went on ahead with the intention of reacting to crazy funny videos, but somehow diverted to music," he said in an interview with NEWS.am STYLE. "My top 2 hobbies are creating music, mostly vocals and dance. I do some break dance, step dance, and contemporary hip-hop freestyle in my free time, so I didn't mind diverting to music and dance related videos. But because I was studying and working then, I couldn’t make time to create my original videos. I started reviewing other creators by reacting to them. Also, because I studied music engineering, mixing and mastering, it made sense to do music reviews."

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Shady says he enjoys listening to different genres. "But I usually prefer Afro beats, Dance/Electronic EDM, house music, and Worship music. I’m Christian, by the way, hence worship music comes in," he said. It was Natalie Portman's SNL rap video on which Shady made his first reaction.

"I found it weirdly interesting because it was unserious like a parody type rap," he said. As for the first Armenian song, it was Brunette's “Future Lover,” Armenia's selection for Eurovision 2023. "I was completely blown away by it. It was so unexpected for me. Her attitude, confidence, self-assertion, sexiness, vocal ability, creativity, and performance were top notch! And I was introduced to it by my followers in the form of a request. Basically, my videos are mostly requests from my followers," he said.

The blogger then started to react to Armenian music frequently.

"I quite liked Nemra's ‘Nare,’ Sirusho's ‘Pregomesh,’ and Iveta’s ‘Armenian Girls.’ For my favorite music video, I think it’s Iveta’s ‘Armenian Girls’ because the production and whole performance on the set was a beauty for the eyes to behold, and the sound was amazing as well. If it’s for my favorite song, I’ll go with Brunette’s ‘Future Lover,’" he said.

The love for Armenian songs also lead to an interest in Armenia. Shady has learnt some important details about Armenian history, its traditions, and even speaks a little Armenian.

"I know of the [Armenian] Genocide and a bit of the history of Noah’s Ark settling on the Ararat mountain, and the treaty you signed giving the mountain to Turkey. I know a bit of your tradition as well, of about the water sprinkling on the car or road when one embarks on a journey wishing them safe travel. I found out the Kardashians were Armenians, too. To be honest, the spoken Armenian is kind of hard for me to follow, but I have learnt a bit from YouTube videos and some apps I found. The few Armenian words I know so far are ‘Barev,’ ‘Barev dzez,’ ‘Inchpes es/vont ces?,’ ‘Lav em,’ ‘Yes Shady Shae em.’ So few, but I'm a work in progress," he said.

Also, Shady Shae plans to visit Armenia in the near future: "I plan to visit in the coming months," he said. "Just tidying up a few bits first and then voila! Armenia, here I come."