From the New York Times:
It began with unlikely fodder for music, comedy or pop culture stardom: a local news report about an attempted rape. But then the victim’s brother stepped before the camera and delivered a lecture to the stranger who had tried to attack his sister one night last month in Huntsville, Ala., that somehow managed to be both deeply angry and oddly compelling.
Within hours a viral video franchise was born when a copy of that report, about the intruder found in Kelly Dodson’s bed, and her brother Antoine’s reaction, was posted on YouTube and quickly shot up the viral video charts.
Soon enough Mr. Dodson’s warnings to Huntsville residents — “Well, obviously we have a rapist in Lincoln Park; he’s climbing in your windows, he’s snatching your people up, trying to rape ‘em, so you all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband ’cause they’re raping everybody out here” — racked up millions of views and attracted the attention of the Gregory Brothers, who transform news clips into songs for their popular “ Auto-Tune the News” series.
That led to their reworking of Mr. Dodson’s rant as “The Bed Intruder Song,” which has now been seen more than 10 million times on YouTube and reached No. 3 on the iTunes R&B chart.
That song, in turn, has now spawned dozens of covers and remixes on YouTube, including this one, performed by a North Carolina A&T marching band:
What distinguishes this surprise hit from other viral videos is that its accidental star, Mr. Dodson, is sharing in all the profits from the auto-tuned version and hopes that his new fame could be a route out of the projects for his family.
In an interview with Wired about their hit, Evan Gregory said, “Antoine is participating in all of the revenue from the sale of anything we do [with the song], 50-50.”
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