What is the “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” song on TikTok? Viral rap turns into dance

❘ Updated: 2024-05-07T13:43:13

TikTok: eveleoniart, _bettydouglas_

A catchy rap called “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” has gone viral on TikTok with an accompanying dance, but it’s left most viewers confused about what it’s about as it’s sung in German.

When TikTok was launched in 2016, it was merged with ByteDance’s other short-form video app – Musical.ly – which was all about dance routines, lip-syncing, and other ways for creatives to showcase their work. This meant that music has played a big part in most viral videos.

Throughout the years, countless songs and sounds have gone viral on the app and have had thousands of people duetting and using the sounds in their own videos.

While some are popular songs from the top hit lists, other sounds were made and published directly onto TikTok with no intention of being known outside of the platform.

One song that has gained immense popularity is “Barbaras Rhabarberbar” – a catchy German rap song performed by two creators on the app. But what is it about? Here’s everything to know.

Contents

What is the “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” song on TikTok?
What is the “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” song about?
TikTokers makes viral Barbara song into dance trend

What is the “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” song on TikTok?

“Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar”, or “Barbaras Rhabarberbar”, is a popular German tongue twister about a woman named Barbara and her famous rhubarb cake, which gets more complicated the further you get.

The original TikTok video, which has been seen over 19.5 million times, was created by German music comedian Bodo Wartke. Although Wartke did not invent the lyrics to the tongue twister, he made it his own by making it into a catchy rap song, which he performed with Marti Fischer.

Several viewers have argued that the two men rapping sound a lot like the Dog of Wisdom, a viral meme from 2015 consisting of a talking dog on a plane.

As the rap went viral, several TikTok users have used the sound in their own videos, where they are seen dancing and lip-syncing along to the catchy tune. One person who duetted the video wrote on her video: “Sir, I don’t know what you’re saying, but you have my full attention.”

Another person is seen drawing while nodding along to the beat. She wrote: “Pov: you’re working and hear this German rap about a lovely woman named Barbara who makes a great rhubarb pie.”

What is the “Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar” song about?

As the song, or tongue twister, is in German, most people who come across it on TikTok have no idea what it’s about.

However, TikTok user ColorTalk C has made an animated video with the lyrics to the song along with the lyrics translated to English so people can understand what they’re singing along to.

In short, the rap is about a woman named Barbara who makes an “abnormally good” rhubarb cake that people across the country have heard of. She decides to open a rhubarb bar as the demand for her rhubarb cake increases.

In the same village that Barbara lives in, there are also barbarians, who keep visiting Barbara’s bar so often that they become known as the “rhubarb bar barbarians”.

The tongue twister then takes a turn to focus on the barbarians, who stop their barbaric behavior and instead go to visit Barbara’s rhubarb bar. Barbara even claims they’re now friendlier than Barbapapa (a children’s cartoon).

However, the barbarians were hairy so Barbara sent them to a barbarian’s barber, who shaved their their heads and trimmed their beards.

TikTokers makes viral Barbara song into dance trend

In March 2024, Australian TikTokers Stephanie and Christina ( @steph_who___ and @Christina Stasii) posted a video of themselves inside a public toilet dancing to the rap and wearing costumes which received 16.6m views.

“POV: You have a song you can’t even understand stuck 24/7,” the on-screen text read.

They then posted another video, repeating the dance routine they came up with which also went even more viral with 18m views, and sparked a new dance trend.

Nearly 29,000 videos have been made using the sound, including American influencers Austin and Marideth Telenko and actor and dancer Kaycee Stroh.

The creators of the song, Wartke and Fischer, also posted a video of them doing the dance trend to their rap in a video that has over 24.3 million views.

Thank you to @Stephanie and @CHRISTINA STASII for the great choreography you came up with for our song, and many thanks to everyone around the world who is dancing to it, especially @Cost n’ Mayor and @KayCee Stroh for making it a worldwide phenomenon!” Wartke wrote.

He then went on to tease: “@Marti Fischer and I are already working on the sequel…!”

If you want to learn more about how to use TikTok, you can check out our other guides here: