Brazil's current president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, surprised many gamers with a recurring social media post mentioning the construction of a Federal Highway Police overpass at the junction of BRF-316 and BR-104, while also emphasizing that more investment would be brought to the country's Northeast. The unusual part was not precisely the "news" itself, but the soundtrack used in the background.
The posts shared through the Brazilian president's official Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts contain music from the game Sonic the Hedgehog, released for Xbox 360 and PS3. Watch:
https://www.facebook.com/jairmessias.bolsonaro/videos/314984339157900/
This is an instrumental version of the theme song created for the game from the Sonic franchise, sung by Zebrahead members and vocalists Ali Tabatabaee and Matty Lewis. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game is part of a sales total for the franchise exceeding 800 million units worldwide, so many people recognized it easily.
Both the original song and the instrumental are part of the game, and neither SEGA nor Zebrahead had commented on the posts by the time this article was published. Whether it was intentional or not, the inevitable question remains: is someone there a Sonic fan?
Update:
The official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account posted about what happened. Both the official account and SEGA representatives appeared somewhat surprised in humorous comments, followed by the translated description: "Today in: 'Places we did not expect to hear the Sonic 2006 soundtrack.'"
https://twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/status/1100219799722909696?
Franchise spokesperson Aaron Webber reiterated for followers in other countries: "Yes, that is a real tweet by the president of Brazil, and yes, that really is the final boss theme from Sonic 2006."
https://twitter.com/RubyEclipse/status/1100220599094263809
About Use and Copyright
SEGA, which owns the character, usually permits fan use of Sonic and all of the franchise's intellectual property, including its music, indirectly and had not taken a negative position when such use was not "for profit."
The company itself has also posted on social media and replied to fans by email that it does not intend to give anyone "direct permission," but allows fans to use works related to the character without complications.
Here is the original sung version:
And here is another version performed entirely by Zebrahead. The fan-made video has more than 11 million views.
