Jangle (And Others): A Question....

[Gamma]

Muscle Up

[Peter R]

Also a dance from CI called "Bobaraba":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2b3HanjuKc

[Peter R]

I hear teeenagers here in T&T using the word "stoosh" now all the time... derived from Jamaican "stocious". "Stoosh" was used by a popular Jamaican dancehall DJ (forget who), and it just crept into the Trini lingo. In fact, that is how the expressions are propagated, via the music, especially dancehall nowadays. Dancehall is more popular among yutes than traditional reggae...

[Gamma]

And so dancehall music does not influence the youth ....?

[Peter R]

It certainly influences what they say... as to what they do, I can't say. But music is powerful and to say it can't or doesn't influence how they think is being naive IMO. It certainly numbs their reaction to the use of "strong" language and how women are viewed... BT just posted a link to a "song" by Gage whose entire theme is to get a woman to suck his dickie... I am no prude but this is where our "musicians" reach and who listening? nuh de yute dem?

[Stonigut]

Yeah exactly, you don't have anything until you can capitalize on it, until then is just a nice idea to be stolen and expanded upon.

We have full recognition for reggae, ska, dancehall, dub etc, we may not have fully benefitted but we have seen magnificent returns from this area worldwide for the past fifty plus years, now others are getting into the act but it took a while. In order to benefit you must make the barriers to entry high so it is not so easy to replicate, well sorry to say a dance move is just the easiest thing to replicate, the barriers to replicate are as low as a Bahamian islands highest point, yeah sea level.

Thank god we are not blamed for twerking, Miley can take it and run with it, plus her success wasn't based on twerking it was based on a model Disney type kid turning into a virago, you can't make that stuff up and she definitely took some highly unusual risks so she Put in the work she deserves everything that twerking brings to her.

[Karl]

Good post!

[Karl]

Historian, I am not an expert on the topic, but based upon my experiences, it is my opinion that the Twerking phenomena has its roots in Jamaican Dancehall dances. Your question actually led me to do some research, but I don't have the time to write a long epistle. But in a nutshell, the term Twerking was originated from a southern Hip Hop rapper describing the the style of dancing. Jamaican women were doing these dances from way back in the early 90's and we can trace it back to even much further - Cool n Deadly, Water Pumpy, Rub-a-Dub, Bubbling. The culture was transferred to Bronx NY, through Kool DJ Herc, the godfather of hip-hop. I submit that the American audience got an introduction to the basics of Twerking in the early 90's through the music videos of Shabba Ranks and Patra. They saw ample bottom women shaking their derriere and backing it up. But our ladies have been doing that long before "Do the Dragon Dance" time. Around the same time that Shabba hit the US market with Mr. Loverman, Sir Mix-a-Lot came out with Baby got Back which rightfully paid homage to God's beautiful creation of women's bubble butt. That gave young women the freedom to shake their butts. However, Jamaican women were already at least a decade ahead in shaking their butts and was starting to "bruk out". The Dancehall music, the dance styles, the clothes and the culture are all inseparable, and Shabba brought all of that to the fore during his reign in the 90's.

For Twerking to work, a woman needs to be dressed appropriately to show off her butt. Our women were already dressing provocatively in the dancehalls from a long time. The Ouch Crew set the trend of the Ghetto Fabulous. Those girls looked good. I remember they had their dressmaking shop smack in the middle of HWT. Their mother was a talented dressmaker and they used to fly in and out between Kingston and NY. Out of the Ouch crew came Carlene the Dancehall Queen and the trend, Bare as You Dare Dances and Parties. The culture transferred to NY - Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx. This was the nucleus of Hip Hop. When the Butterfly Dance became popular in Jamaica, it also gained traction amongst young people in the US. Twerking is just a natural progression of many Jamaican dance styles. As I have said here before, the Dancehall culture is very popular amongst the American Hip Hop young people, especially through YouTube.

Great going, Jangle!

Aside: Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born American DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music in the early 1970s in The Bronx, New York City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Kool_Herc

[Karl]

Yeah exactly, you don't have anything until you can capitalize on it, until then is just a nice idea to be stolen and expanded upon.

We have full recognition for reggae, ska, dancehall, dub etc, we may not have fully benefitted but we have seen magnificent returns from this area worldwide for the past fifty plus years, now others are getting into the act but it took a while. In order to benefit you must make the barriers to entry high so it is not so easy to replicate, well sorry to say a dance move is just the easiest thing to replicate, the barriers to replicate are as low as a Bahamian islands highest point, yeah sea level.

Thank god we are not blamed for twerking, Miley can take it and run with it, plus her success wasn't based on twerking it was based on a model Disney type kid turning into a virago, you can't make that stuff up and she definitely took some highly unusual risks so she Put in the work she deserves everything that twerking brings to her.

Imitation the greatest form of flattery?

“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.”
― George Bernard Shaw

[Tilla]

I'm always amazed at Jamaicans taking credit for things without delving into the actual history of its origins and where we got it in the first place. A case in point. When I was in college, one evening while we were at a gathering of international students, one of my Jamaican countrymen made the comment that he was amazed how much of an influence our little country of Jamaica have on the world. He continued to say that Jamaicans introduced the dread-lock hairstyle to the world and he was so happy to see that it is taking set even in Africa, the motherland.

He was politely corrected by a young lady from Namibia, who went on to inform him that Africans have been wearing the hairstyle for thousands of years, long before Jamaica was even discovered by Columbus.

There was an uncomfortable deafening silence over the room for a long moment after the young lady's response...

[Mosiah]

Wellll...I kinda disagree with your Namibian friend. If the issue is who first did, used or wore something, then that should be considered separate and apart from who introduced whatever into popular culture.

I will say Jamaicans introduced dreadlocks and maybe even that butt shaking dance into popular culture. So what if some obscure peoples of Namibia and India have been wearing it for centuries! No one in the western hemisphere knew or cared. (I'm being deliberately boorish here! ) It was Bob Marley and others who put the sexy into that style.

Ivorian women were probably shaking their butts for centuries but can they really say they introduced the dance to the world?

And that's why Europeans got away with saying Columbus discovered the Americas. That's not to say they Americas did not exist long before he met with Queen Isabella, but in world history, as recorded in the books of Europe, there was nothing out there!

On a side, Queen Isabella belonged to a certain frowsy crew that was popular in those days. "Another in this “gruesome two-some” class among the aristocracy was Queen Isabel I of Spain who once confessed that she had taken a bath only twice in her lifetime, when she was first born and when she got married." - http://www.todayifoundout.com/index....dieval-europe/

That's how you hijack your own post!

[Jangle]

Well since you touched on the topic of personal hygiene, I've always noticed that many Africans and Arabs, sometimes Indians that I've come across here, tend to carry a very "high" body odor. I figure that anti-perspirant deodorant is banned in their culture.

[Mosiah]

Well since you touched on the topic of personal hygiene, I've always noticed that many Africans and Arabs, sometimes Indians that I've come across here, tend to carry a very "high" body odor. I figure that anti-perspirant deodorant is banned in their culture.

In western culture, perfumes and such things were used to mask body odours as a result of Isabellian hygienic habits. So, maybe it's those who smell particularly pleasing who we should be suspicious of and not the person who is a tad green.

[Jangle]

Well I guess our olfactory glands have gotten used to the odor-masking scents.

[Tilla]

Well since you touched on the topic of personal hygiene, I've always noticed that many Africans and Arabs, sometimes Indians that I've come across here, tend to carry a very "high" body odor. I figure that anti-perspirant deodorant is banned in their culture.

Years ago I was invited to a function by an Indian friend here in Kansas City. Maybe 90% of those in attendance were Indians.

One of the speakers at the function was an oncologist (cancer doctor as he later simplified it for the audience). The gentleman spoke about the use of antiperspirants as the cause of cancer. He said that when we use antiperspirants, it prevents the body from getting rid of certain cancer causing toxins. I do not know if this knowledge is common among Indians per say and if it has anything to do with what you observe for that group. I cannot speak for the Arab and African groups however.

Incidentally, I do have African and Arab friends and I do not notice that problem. I have noticed it among some Indians, but not every one.