I haven't done one of these in a minute but I felt that this was important. I, like many of my other black brethren have been a bit annoyed by the "new" dance craze the Harlem Shake. I'm not annoyed at the song despite it's repetitive boring beat. I'm not mad at the goofy dance. I'm kinda annoyed at how it's totally mislabeled. What they're doing is not the Harlem Shake. The Harlem Shake is a dance that has been extremely popular in and around NYC for my entire life span. That's 25 years! It's a fast paced,highly skilled and on beat dance that has been used by many skilled dancers for decades. This new craziness is not that, at all. In fact the real Harlem Shake has been popular in the national and international hip hop community for at least a decade and it's thanks to none other than Sean "Diddy" Combs, G. Dep and the rest of the old Bad Boy records crew. Click on the first video to see professor Melissa Harris-Perry explain the history of the dance and it's significance to black culture. Click on the 2nd video to see how it was first introduced to people not living in and around the New York, tri-state area. If I wanted to sum this up in ridiculous hyperbole, I would say that calling the new dance the Harlem Shake is like me calling myself an Italian just because my first name is an actual Italian name.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Song of the Day
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