You may be wondering who in the world Ken Lee is. Is he a famous martial artist, actor or novelist? The answer is actually none of the above because Ken Lee is not a ‘who’ but a ‘what’.
Ken Lee is Valentina Hasan’s rendition of Mariah Carey’s cover version of the song ‘Without You’ that was released in 1993. ‘Without You’ is a classic love song originally from Badfinger and released in 1970. ‘Ken Lee’ actually translates to ‘can’t live’ which is a line from the song ‘Without You’. And no, it is not an actual language, but a muddled interpretation of ‘can’t live’ or so Valentina says.
Who is Valentina Hasan?
Valentina Hasan is the main character in the super popular Internet meme Ken Lee. She became popular when she auditioned for the Music Idol television show in Bulgaria during February 7, 2008.
The particular viral video where Valetina Hasan was shown auditioning for the show was uploaded by a certain user ArathBenedek on February 27, 2008 to a very popular online video sharing site community and was titled ‘Ken Lee or Without You by Mariah Carey’. The video description stated that Valentina was then 29 years old, married and she hailed from the Zvezdelina village in the province of Kardzhali. The description likewise noted that she lived in Spain during that time.
The Actual Performance and Video that Started the Ken Lee Craze
While auditioning for a spot on the widely popular Music Idol TV show in Bulgaria, Valentina Hasan told the judges that she wishes to sing the song ‘Ken Lee’ by Mariah Carey. The judges then attempted to correct her that the song’s name is actually ‘Without You’ but Valentina Hasan said that “no, it can’t be” prior to her being cut off by the Music Idol judges.
Valentina Hasan then started to sing her rendition of Ken Lee which musically sounded like ‘Without You’ but with the lyrics so off and garbled that the judges can’t help laughing and looking confused. After having sang her piece, the judges asked her what language she sang the song in and she answered back that it was English and goes on to say that she didn’t speak English very well.
After ArathBenedek uploaded the video, other fans of the Ken Lee Internet meme edited the original footage to show how greatly off mark Valentina Hasan sang the lyrics. The edited video footage showed intercuts of Mariah Carey performing ‘Without You’ for a more accurate comparison.
The Ken Lee viral video craze helped Valentina Hasan garner her 15 minutes of fame in the web even if she did not get to continue on the next round of Music Idol. The viral video first became popular in Bulgaria and then spread like wildfire over the world with the viral video pulling in over 4 million user views during its first month. Currently, the viral video has hit the 11 million mark.
To better understand Valentina Hasan’s interpretation of Ken Lee, below are the lyrics to both Valentina’s version and Mariah Carey’s version of ‘Without You’:
| Ken Lee by Valentina Hasan
No one ken to ken to sivmen, |
Without You by Mariah Carey
No I can’t forget this evening |
Reception and Social Impact of the Ken Lee Viral Video Craze
After the success of the Internet meme Ken Lee, Mariah Carey was shown Valentina Hasan’s video. While on an interview with ‘Le Grand Journal’, a French television show, Mariah Carey was asked for her opinion pertaining to Valentina’s performance.
Mariah Carey was quoted as saying that she gives due credit to Valentina for having the courage to audition and sing for a television singing competition and that she deserves ‘a round of applause’. Because of the viral video’s million mark hits, the producers of Music Idol also had an idea to bring Valentina back to the show after several weeks and perform Ken Lee live on the show.
The second time around, Valentina had studied the original lyrics of ‘Without You’ and she was able to prove herself by singing the right lyrics with only very minor mistakes. She even had the grace to make fun of herself on TV and sang the song’s last verse in her original Ken Lee style.
The second Ken Lee video was also uploaded in a popular online video sharing community site. Reportedly, both the original Ken Lee video and the second video garnered over 13 million hits by May 2008.
Hasan was also interviewed by Bulgarian media and stated that she really didn’t know English so she learned ‘Without You’ by ear and heart by repeatedly listening to it on a cassette tape. She is quoted as saying that she “sang it the way she felt it.”
Valentina Hasan’s widely successful Internet meme even spawned some remixes and parodies which include disco, house, as well as performances in the Dayana Mendoza style. Helsinki’s The Wandering Hands also performed a Ken Lee parody after winning the Helsinki 10s in 2009. She was also a guest in a Spanish television show where she shared her Ken Lee story. During the show, some Spaniards were also shown imitating her.
Due to the viral video craze that is Ken Lee, ‘Ken Lee’ is now being used for describing a word or words for substituting inaccurate English words.
