Dance Crazes That Became Hit Songs

Remember when you'd be at your family reunion and your Uncle busted out a Conga Line, and you got so embarrassed ? Or that time you went to that dodgy club on holiday with your family back in the mid 90's and it was full of drunk germans doing the Macarena and it made you cringe so bad you felt a little bit sick? Of course, you do. 

My point is - Dance Crazes have a bad rep in the Western World. When we think of groups of people doing synchronized dance moves together it immediately takes us back to horrible places where Ricky Martin was still king and Brandon was still working at the Peach Pit. The truth is though - maybe not so much in our neck of the woods but dance crazes are large and in charge on dancefloors all over the world. In fact in Jamaican culture the dancers are just as much a part of dancehall culture that whilst each week you'll hear the latest 'riddims' being dropped from the top producers, dance crews will spend the week creating new moves and bring them to the party the following week in a process they call 'building a dance' - a lot of these dance moves become so successful that artists write songs about these new dance moves - same thing is happening all over Africa and South America. Might sound crazy, but here's the purpose of this post. To share with you a number of hit songs - old and new that started off as dance moves - and next thing - became hit songs. I'm looking forward to taking my own patented 'Dig The Hangi' to a number of dance floors over the course of summer

Beenie Man - Row Like A Boat

Okay so if there's any country that knows how to kick off a dance craze then it's Jamaica, of course Bogle is the man that took things to the next level, but it still blows my mind that dance crews each week in Jamaica 'build' dances so that the following week they have new dances to bust out at nights like 'Uptown Mondays' and 'Passa Passa'. Row Like a Boat up first cause it's so silly and there's nothing more hilarious than watching some seriously screwfaced bad dudes rowing an imaginary boat.

MC Creu - Danca do Creu 

This whole craze was just ridiculous - Baile Funk has been for the last few decades and still is to this day the soundtrack to the Rio favelas, and this whole craze saw girls of all ages from 6 year olds to grannies doing that mad hydraulic jack hammer ass thing which as you can imagine on both ends feels a bit wrong. Anyways - this craze was ridiculous and they used to have competitions in massive arenas awarding rio's greatest jack-hammer bubble butt girl. I'm sure MC Creu had a lot of sex during this period.

Gracious K - Migraine Skank 

Just round the time the whole UK Funky thing was popping off this track started kicking off - built around a rhythm that is part DJ Gregory part Lil' Silva the dance itself consisted of putting both hands behind your head like you've got a headache and flapping your elbows a bit - i tried to kick off the craze in New Zealand at a gig one night but everyone just looked at me funny.

Chubby Checker - The Twist 

Not much to say here really - the original don of the Dance Craze cum Hit song thang. Maximum respect to the chubbster

JW & Blaze - Palance 

Heading over to Trinidad & Tobago now and this track by JW & Blaze was the biggest track at Carnival in 2010 winning Soca Monarch and Road March that year. So big that it's now part of Trinidadian vernacular - Palance means basically - PArty Liming dANCE - which is basically the three things the trini's love doing the best. 'Liming' by the way means hanging out talking shit in case your wondering what the hell i'm on about. So yes, Palancing - if hopping from one foot to the next to 150 bpm Soca sounds like your thing - then i think you just found yourself your new favourite moves

Kylie - Locomotion  

I'm from New Zealand so we generally don't like much that came out of Australia, problem is though when I was 5 I had a pretty mean crush on Kylie Minogue, but mostly for rocking pretty awesome plumbers outfits on the soap opera - 'Neighbours' - I'm not sure what having a thing for girls in plumbers outfits says about my youth but i digress - if you didn't have this playing at your 6th birthday back in the mid 80's then you were ripped off

Constuleta - Tchiriri  

This was the biggest track in Angola a few years back in their own local dance style of 'Kuduro' which literally translates to 'Hard Ass' - the track is awesome and was always more awesome that Constuleta in the original video really shows just how well a dude with one leg can party

Young B - Chicken Noodle Soup 

You can say what you want about the track, but you can't get down on a dance craze that involves flapping your wings like a cracked out chicken can ya. You letting it rain and clearing it out too? Yeah, same bro

Mr Vegas - Tek Weh Yuself 

Start with Jamaica, and finish with Jamaica. There really is nothing more liberating then being in the middle of the dancefloor and picking your self up by the scruff of the neck. I was in Kingston a few years back and i found that i managed to diffuse many a particularly prickly social situation by 'tekking weh myself. Hours of fun.