First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
It is everywhere. Youths with handcuffed hands, nodding and marching on unsteady ground into an uncertain future. There is a side to side rhythmic sway like one walking and nodding in a narrow canoe on the River Niger. Suddenly, there is a pause and the handcuffs are off. One hand points in the direction of the Promised Land while the other hand is shaped like a phone and placed on the ear calling all friends to alert them that El Dorado might be in sight. Welcome to the new dance craze called Shaku Shaku originating from the land that gave us the Agege bread.
Yes, Shaku Shaku is said to have been invented on the streets of Agege organically. Like all dance crazes, there is music to go along with it. Olamide is the King of the music but other performers such as Reminisce, Mr Real, Obadice, DJ Prince, Small Doctor, Dammy Krane and Slimcase also keep the Shaku feet shuffling.
Dance crazes are not new at all. Recently Psy had his ‘Gangnam Style’ make waves across the world. The principal move is quite similar to Shaku Shaku except that with Psy’s dancing there is a dramatisation of South Korean youth riding imaginary horses as they gallop to the beat. Gangnam Style has the dancer gyrating with two hands forward in a movement that mimics holding onto the reins of a horse. Shaku Shaku, on the other hand, is a dance of youth uncertainty and bondage, as opposed to Gangnam Style which is one of middle-class affluence and youth aspiration. Barrack Obama and David Cameron both had a go at Gangnam Style but I don’t see President Muhammadu Buhari bursting any Shaku Shaku moves in the foreseeable future.
For a long time dances have been imported into Nigeria. The 60s had the highlife brought in from Ghana, followed by American dance imports. James Brown moves were quite popular in the early 70s with local performers such as Geraldo Pino providing good imitations of the JB shuffle.
In 1974, ‘Kung Fu’ fighting by Carl Douglas took the Lagos youth by Earthquake. A bizarre dance hat had us jump and land frozen in a Kung Fu pose. Sounds silly now but felt Avant-Garde at the time. ‘Ring My Bell’ by Anita Ward ushered in a dance called ‘feelings’ in which the shoulders heaved in time with the beat while alternate legs were stuck out to the side. A dull and monotonous occurrence but, again, felt like the coolest thing to do. In the 80s, dancing definitely got harder with the breakdance and rap music influencing the music scene. Michael Jackson was the pin-up boy of dance in the 80s and everyone tried to learn some of his moves.
The new millennium brought a feeling that Nigeria had banned the importation of foreign dances (instead of petrol and diesel which we should have been refining ourselves). Yet that Makossa groove from Cote d’Ivoire came and took Nigeria by Earthquake. Magic System’s ‘Premier Gaou’ put a BMW engine in every pelvis instigating rotations that broke the laws of physics at every Nigerian party. Some of those moves looked like ducks with genital herpes doing the moonwalk.
Ajegunle boys soon brought us Galala and Swo aided and abetted by Daddy Showkey (there is always a ringleader) and Marvellous Benji. Then Olu Maintain hit with Yahozee, a strange dance that involves swinging the arms like a pompous orchestra conductor and then suddenly looking at one’s hands lifted in the air. I have noticed that Lagos Island is yet to give Lagos a dance. We are waiting
Alanta was a strange dance that had the youth in seizures grabbing at various parts of the chest and beating the abdomen like some weird radioactive scabies was crawling under the skin. The dance came with a sardonic facial expression representing a crazy economy and untold hardship for the masses. Fela called this state one of “demo-crazy “aka demonstration of craze; essentially a failed democracy.
More was to come, Iyanya brought us Kukere a dance that gave the impression that one was afflicted with painful piles which had to be dislodged by shaking each leg alternatively like a pneumatic drill while clenching the buttocks. For a change from Kukere, Nigeria lifted its ban on imported dances and Azonto came in from Ghana.
The boys from Accra took their dance ascendancy for culinary supremacy and began to boast about their Jollof rice.
Nigerians went back to the research laboratories and a breakthrough came by way of Davido who brought the Skelewu dance which had the youth move and groove with their tongues hanging out while they reversed an imaginary car with one hand while the other hand was akimbo. Walking backwards was a strong metaphor for the Nigerian economy at the time.
Lil Kesh hit with Shoki which had the youth squatting to the ground to pick up Nigeria, few grains of sand at a time. They wiggled the outstretched hands of sand high up but the winds of corruption blew the sand in their eyes. They gave up and dunked the remaining sand away and had one hand over their bad eye.
Alas, we are in the Shaku Shaku era. A move that binds Nigerian youth the way a winning Super Eagles team can. I say, make a Shaku Shaku mix version of the National Anthem for a revived young Nigerian nationalism. There are no tribal variants of the move. Unlike JAMB examinations that have different pass marks for different states of the country, Shaku Shaku is an equal opportunity dance craze. When that track ‘Wo’ by Olamide hits the airwaves, the expectation is the same from Kano, to Port Harcourt and Lagos. Bust a move and the best one gets the most likes on Instagram; a pure meritocracy.
Those of a certain age complain that they cannot cope with this new footwork. I implore them to practise and avail themselves of cerebral plasticity. Those old neurons will reconnect and the moves will make sense in the end. Dance at parties sometimes is a bit like an archaeological site. There are levels of deposited soil that represents various time zones. How people dance dates them to the exact month they stopped practising the new moves.
Learning new moves for some is just not a priority so they might become stuck at the Anita Ward ‘Ring My Bell’ era in 2018.
It’s all good. The heart and lungs don’t mind what the moves are. Just move and the heart benefits accrue.
Shaku Shaku could grow like reggae did and produce billions for Nigeria. First, we need our own Bob Marley and an indigenous version of Chris Blackwell’s Island Records. World domination beckons.
Just ‘Wo’!
