Negarakuku
Wee's sudden rise to stardom is the result of his highly controversial piece - I Love My Country Negarakuku (Visit Malaysia 2007 Theme Song) (Chinese: '我愛我的國家 Negarakuku (2007大馬觀光年主題曲)'). Wee was studying in Taiwan when he released the song.
The song consists of two major components: rapping, which is exclusively composed and performed by Wee, and Negaraku, which is split into three segments between the rapping and sung out in groups of two or three verses. While the national anthem sung in an R&B style, Wee had no intention of altering the melody and lyrics of the anthem and had tried to retain the anthem's original theme and meaning. The arrangement used by Wee follows original arrangement of the anthem, which the Malaysian government had since altered three times. The rap was in Mandarin, with occasional Hokkien phrases and words, while verses of the national anthem are sung in their original Malay form.
In the beginning of the song, Wee dedicates the song to "all Malaysians, especially the Government". Negarakuku covers elements of daily lives in Malaysia from Wee's perspective, including police corruption, inefficient public services and biased government policies. His song also refers to Muslims' call for the earliest of their five daily prayers as a "morning call" which would wake him up at 5 a.m. ("早上五点, 还有 morning call 会叫我起床") and also as "what sounds like a love song that ululates in an R&B fashion, when many sing together" ("有时几间一起唱, 听起来好像情歌对唱, 声音拗来拗去像唱 R&B 一样"). Moreover, the song also points to the alleged laid-back lifestyle of Malays (who are mostly Muslims), referring to them as people who "cover their heads and cross the road slowly" ("他们把头包起来, 慢慢走慢慢过马路").
A lower audio and video quality music video for the song was uploaded to YouTube by Wee on July 15, 2007, featuring a montage of photographs of Malaysia, a Visit Malaysia 2007 video and a video of Wee rapping against the backdrop of a Malaysian flag. The video ends depicting both a Chinese caption thanking unnamed parties for videos and images provided for the montage, and an English/Malay caption pleading viewers not to be sue him as he has no money ("please don't sue me, saya takde duit"). The video was removed by Wee amid pressure on July 23, 2007, but copies of the video, including one with English and Malay subtitles of the song's Chinese lyrics, are still available on the site. The videos received an average of over 100,000 hits; a duplicate version of Wee's original video, uploaded in the middle of July 2007, received a total of 1.4 million hits as of early September 2007.
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