adminFred Zindi Music
The capital, Kampala, is like any other city in Africa with the attraction of bright lights and the usual hustle and bustle offered by a major metropolitan area. At Kampala Serena Hotel, where I was booked for five nights, we were treated to the best music bands in the country and the best night life one can expect in a modern city.
From there, I noticed a fast-paced city life.
Business people approached the hotel in their latest Mercs with 30 inch rims. There were people from different walks of life who gathered at the hotel for entertainment: students, city slickers and some dreadlocked men who were getting high on weed were all present.
Young women dressed in mini-skirts also came to the hotel at night riding on the backs of border-borders (motor cycles) and they would show off their dancing skills as they gyrated to live music.
To me, that was normal behaviour expected from any city in the modern world.
However, since my return from Uganda, I hear there has been a lot going on at once in that country. The first thing I heard is about the ban on “indecency”, as girls are no longer allowed to wear mini-skirts. Then there was another ban on pornography and now homosexuality. Morality in Uganda seems to be the order of the day.
The criminalisation of same sex relationships is now an Act of Parliament.
I am beginning to wonder if those crazy dance moves I witnessed on Ugandan dance floors are still going on.
This is the country from which I first came across a dance move called twerking.
Dr Mangena, a lecturer at Makerere University explanined to me: “We Africans no longer want to be associated with traditional African dances only.
“We like to take in all the crazy and wild dances from elsewhere, especially the United States, and twerking is the in-thing now”.
When I asked him to further describe twerking, this is what he had to say:
“Twerking is a type of dance in which an individual, usually a female, dances to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low squatting stance.
“It also involves twisting and jerking. I am told that the term began as street language in New Orleans with the rise of the local hip-hop music known as bounce.
“Since the late 1990s, twerking was associated with bounce music of the dirty south and was disseminated via mainstream hip hop videos and popular video-sharing sites since the mid 2000s.
“We Ugandans learned how to twerk through such videos and social network sites such as YouTube.”
He further told me that all the suggestive videos which used to show on Ugandan television have been banned as the government now aims for high morals among Ugandans.
In Uganda, it seems twerking has also been banned because of its sexually provocative and outrageously “dirty” manner.
Comparisons have been made with Jamaican dancehall skinout dances as well as traditional African dances such as the Mapouka dance from West Africa which was banned from Ivory Coast’s television due to its sexually suggestive nature.
We have however had a long tradition of kwasa-kwasa dance from the DRC as exhibited in Zimbabwe last week by Koffi Olomide and his female dancers.
Those who saw the moves argued that these were close to twerking. Similar dances such as Ghana’s azonto dance have also been linked to twerking. Twerking has not only spread to Africa, but has become a world-wide dance craze.
In April 2013, rapper Danny Brown released the song “Express Yourself”, inspired by music producer Diplo’s song of the same name.
The song, produced by Trampy, features a fast-paced electronic beat and is a composition about the popular dance craze twerking. Brown dedicated the song “to all the ladies that like to turn up and have fun.”
In June 2013, rapper Busta Rhymes released a Jamaican dancehall inspired single “Twerk It” featuring Nicki Minaj, who has been featured on several other twerking songs.
In 2013, 33 students from Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego, were suspended for using school equipment to make a twerking video on school grounds that was later uploaded to YouTube.
In August 2013, recording artist Miley Cyrus generated controversy following a sexually provocative performance during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, in which Cyrus twerked during a medley of her track “We Can’t Stop”.
Now, if conservatives in America find twerking offensive, what are the chances of such a dance move becoming acceptable in Zimbabwe?
Since Zimbabweans do not like to be left behind whenever there is a new craze or fashion, is it not just a matter of time before twerking hits this country?
If you go to Clubs such as Chez Ntemba in Harare, you will probably notice a few girls doing the twerking.
I am sure innovative artistes will also copy twerking and combine it with their own existing acts just like Alick Macheso did a few years ago. He saw Michael Jackson’s moonwalk dance, took it and combined it with sungura dance moves and called it Borrowdale. That popularised Macheso.
In Ghana, the azonto dance which is also sexually-suggestive seems to have been accepted by all. Over the last few years, no single dance has dominated the Ghanaian landscape than the phenomenal azonto dance. Not only has the dance dominated the night clubs, parties, beach sessions, social events and even church auditoriums but has also gained international recognition not only on the African continent but across the world.
It is also the toast of both the young and old. However, inspite of the numerous advantages and gains associated with the dance, a handful of people have taken it to extreme.
Presently, one Ghanaian newspaper has in its possession, some semi-nude pictures of an alleged “Naked Azonto party” which was allegedly held at a secret location at Ashaiman during the yuletide.
Although the newspaper could not independently authenticate the source of the pictures and the exact location in Ashaiman where the alleged party took place, it is said that some young ladies and men stripped naked and semi-naked as they moved to music doing the azonto dance. I am not sure why this Dance craze has not reached Zimbabwe yet.
Perhaps our artistes either dislike this form of dance or they are not watching videos from Ghana.
If they eventually get round to copying it, they need to change a few things because I understand this dance craze has already been patented.
So Sexy Angels, Sulumani Chimbetu, Jah Prayzah, Mambokadzi, Alick Macheso and others, be warned because this dance craze is now a patented intellectual property and you will need a license before you copy it.
Some girls in Ghana have taken the azonto craze to a new level.
They now have the adult version and they dance it without wearing anything.
An azonto song popular in the Ghanaian night clubs at the moment is called “Dancing in the Nude”.
It looks like dancing in Zimbabwe will soon be dominated by Twerking and azonto dances in the near future.
Wait and see!
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