My mother used to say, “you teenagers aren’t doing anything different than what we did...you just gave it a new name”. Well, one name remained the same. The Harlem Shake. The Harlem Shake was a form of dance made popular in 2001, after being featured in a Rap video by G-Dep, Black Rob and P. Diddy called, “Let’s Get It”.
Click link or copy and paste link into your browser to view video: http://youtu.be/az7pn5zfUsU
The origin of the dance goes further back than 2001. Originally known as the “Albee” dance, it was known to have started by a man called Al B or Cisco Al who performed an odd dance at a park in Harlem called Rucker Park during the Entertainer’s Basketball Classics games in 1981. Being that the moves he performed were as if he were shaking to a rhythm, the dance caught on in Harlem and other areas and became the “Harlem Shake”.
Fast forward to February 2013, the “Harlem Shake” has come back. Brooklyn, New York music producer Baauer, created an electronic dance track with the same title that went viral on YouTube and re-energized the dance craze.
Baauer’s “Harlem Shake”climbed all the way to the top of the charts on iTunes and has generated over 44 million views on YouTube. The spread of the dance track and the dance craze may have been credited to a YouTube video which shows people wearing different costumes from latex to the “Power Rangers”. Kinda creepy. The video was uploaded to YouTube on January 30, 2013.
Click here or copy and past link to your browser to view video: http://youtu.be/8vJiSSAMNWw
There are many “Harlem Shake” videos being created. Which one is your favorite?
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