Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, NBA great Shaquille O’Neal and consumer reporter Clark Howard make cameo appearances in a 12-year-old Atlanta boy’s bar mitzvah rap video invitation, which has become a hit on YouTube.
The "Save This Date" video, which has attracted more than 63,000 hits on YouTube and was featured of NBC's "Today" show Wednesday, took about nine weeks to produce, according to Daniel Blumen's father, Atlanta lawyer Rick Blumen.
To the beat of “Welcome to Atlanta” by Ludacris featuring Jermaine Dupri, Daniel raps:
“Welcome to Atlanta where the playas play,
Hopin’ you can make my Bar Mitzvah day,
Thirteen years since I was born
And the party won’t stop ‘til Sunday mornin.’ “
Clark Howard appears in the video with Daniel in the studios at WSB-TV in Midtown. In an image from a TNT set, Daniel appears with former NBA stars Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley. The youth appears with former V-103 DJ Frank Ski in a music studio. And rapper Ne-Yo appears on a “Welcome to Atlanta” postcard holding the sign that reads, ” To my lil rapper D, Mazel Tov!’
Later in the video Mayor Kasim Reed, cross-armed and in a dark business suit, appears with Daniel, clad in striped polo shirt, in what appears to be a City Hall office. Daniel raps:
“I’m the MVP, most valuable playa,
Make my own moves; I’m with the Maya.”
The youth’s video includes scenes from Turner Field, the Georgia Aquarium, Fernbank, World of Coca-Cola and The Temple.
Blumen and Daniel’s mother, Liz Blumen, are lawyers at Alston & Bird. Rick Blumen said they were able to get the celebrities to appear in the video with the help of friends. “It’s mostly friends of friends that have connected the different points,” the father said. They also wanted celebrities to appear in it like the original Ludacris video.
While he declined to say how much the video cost to produce, Blumen said “it was not expensive. The paper invitations are more expensive, and they are not fancy.”
Daniel, whose bar mitzvah is this coming May, makes use of Ludacris' original lyrics, "Oink, oink, pig pig do away with the pork."
