We’ve been looking at Lou Bega all wrong. For decades, the “Mambo No. 5" singer has lived in our cultural memory as a figure of fun—a guy who just loves to dance, name women’s names, and wear old-timey clothes. As a virtual escape room ominously named Chamber No.5 makes clear, we were wrong. Bega has, in fact, been hiding a terrifying, Jigsaw-esque secret identity just beneath the false exterior of his pleasant, thinly mustachioed smile.
The escape room, which was created by Jimmy Chang and inspired by a Famicase Exhibition entry from Jordan Persson, forces players into the role of the subject of Bega’s latest sick human experiment. It takes place in a nearly featureless room and begins only after you “take one step left” and “one step right.” “Mambo No.5" filters in and the back wall of the room, scrawled with the names of the women from Bega’s song and “YOU” in giant letters, begins to inch forward. A computer terminal and a pair of outstretched statue hands promise escape only for those players able to determine the solution to Bega’s homicidal puzzle.