Africa Is a Country

Pan-African Twerking

Pan-African Twerking

By
Shamira Muhammad

That South Africa has a "Pro Twerk Team" may seem like a great opportunity to see twerking from a new, non-American perspective. Or to throw shade.

Source: Facebook page of Protwerkers.

Welcome to Africa is a Country’s first (?) NSFW post. South Africa has a “pro” twerk team. In what could have been an amazing Pan-African exchange, they came up short and better called themselves professionals. Full stop as I reluctantly throw them a dark haze of shade.

I guess everyone outside the southern United States just discovered what twerking/freak dancing/winding is. (All different, but bear with me.) I’m not hating on the “South Africa Twerk team” because they are twerking. I have been twerkin’ for nearly all my life, and it’s a time honored pastime for me and several of my close friends. Better, this seemed like a great opportunity to see twerking from a new, non-American perspective.

Nope, I’m disappointed because this twerk team is NOT TWERKING. Which is unfortunate, because the origins of twerking, like most great things, lie in Africa. My homie and twerk extraordinaire, Sawdayah, pointed out some quick references are Makossa or Makassi (Cameroon), Mapouka (Cote d’Ivoire), Kwasa Kwasa (DRC).

Twerking is not simply dizzying butt movements meant to arouse any guy watching. It’s not tight camera shots that make you feel like you’re at an awkward strip club. It for damn sure isn’t absent of technique, rhythm and continuous movement and energy. And that’s not what the Pro-Twerkers are giving the camera here.

I’d like to give you, the reader, and y’all, the SA “Pro” Twerkers a quick primer on how to ride the beat.

First, here’s the very talented Atlanta Twerk Team.

To be able to twerk effectively, what you’re doing is pulling in all the techniques learned from a variety of dance forms, and being able to manipulate your hips to create a façade of impossible moves. It is serious and actually requires years of practice and talent. Gymnastics, belly dancing, salsa can all be incorporated, thus, allowing you to recognize a pro when you see one.

If you grew up in the American south, you’ve probably been twerking all your life. At family reunions as a 6-year old. At middle school dances outside the glance of the chaperone. It’s not about someone else projecting their own sexual issues onto you. Here are some classics to practice with. I’ll start with Juvenile with the obvious reference in the title, “Back That Ass Up.”

Next up is Project Pat and Juicy J’s “Twerk It.” The lyrics are gross, but thank you Three 6 Mafia, UGK, and Bun B for your bass lines.

Then you have to know how to play with the layers of rhythms. Ciara in “Ride” is fantastic.

Can you do that? Yes? You are talented. One of the members of the SA Pro Twerkers immediately complains that they get a lot of haters who dismiss them as simply doing sexual dancing. Another goes on to say that they have all types of different techniques and rhythms they throw on their hips. First, girls, your haters have a point and second, just no. You are not professionals. What you are giving is a sexual shock factor, not real twerking talent. If you want it to be an authentic, Southern style twerk, elevate above the basic “just-found-out-I-got-a booty” spastic gyrating and become one with the beat. Learn the basics.

Improvise and earn the professional title. Until then, please practice.

Further Reading

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

Cinematic universality

Fatou Cissé’s directorial debut meditates on the uncertain fate and importance of Malian cinema amidst the growing dismissiveness towards the humanities across the world.

The meanings of Heath Streak

Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.

Victorious

After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?

The magic man

Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.

Resistance is a continuous endeavor

For more than 75 years, Palestinians have organized for a liberated future. Today, as resistance against Israeli apartheid intensifies, unity and revolutionary optimism has become the main infrastructure of struggle.

Paradise forgotten

While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.