In Nigeria, with lot of music to dance and vibe too, every year is attached with a new strange dance move and thanks to the streets here comes another and it’s – “Shaku Shaku”.
‘Shaku Shaku’ origin is a little bit unclear we don’t actually know where it foundation was layed unlike other popular dance moves like ‘Alingo’ – P-Square, ‘Skelewu’ – Davido, ‘Shoki’by Dre San, the ‘Bobo’ dance by Olamide and the popular ‘Azonto’ and ‘One Corner’ from Ghana but got massive reception in Nigeria too.
Agege, a suburb area in Lagos, is becoming an unusual spot for creativity, the area is known for its large and busy markets areas for trading and major roads but inner the streets is a street vulture that’s gradually influencing the Nigerian music industry. Being an indigine of Agege, Dammy Krane has alligned himself closely with this new vibe and even tagged his One Lagos Music Fiesta last month at Agege stadium as a homecoming.
This new vibe everyone is clamouring for is a dance step and also partially classified as a type of music for the street. It has been prior to when we hit the year 2018, it was a dance that was danced to top raving streets songs like Flex B’s – ‘Umbele’ and Razor’s – ‘Gbera’. But the dance and the type of Shaku Shaku music which always has an up tempo beat hit it mainstream when Dammy Krane released a new song titled ‘Shaku Shaku’ which quickly hit the playlist rotation alongside Mr. Real’s “Legbegbe”, Idowest’s “Omo Shepeteri” (featuring Slimcase and Dammy Krane), Slimcase’s “Oshozondi”, Zlatan Ibile’s “My Body” (featuring Olamide), and the most recents songs for the vibe are: Small Doctor’s “This Year”, Cashwale’s “Handkerchief”, DJ Enimoney’s “Codeine Diet” (featuring Slimcase, Reminisce and Tiwa Savage) and Reminisce’s “Problem”, and numerous other records.
‘Shaku Shaku’ origin is not just attached to all these proves stated above alone it also said
that the dance started to feature heavily on the streets of Agege and that by some accounts, the infamous awawa boys (street urchins) are credited with popularizing it. In fact, most of the stories behind the birth of shaku shaku are grimy; DJ Real even claims that the dance step was named after the way street urchins moved after smoking copious amounts of weed.
The dance and style of music has given rise to new upcoming and striving artiste like Mr Real, Idowest, Obadice, SlimCase and they were were projected when they hit the stage at Olamide’s OLIC 4 concert held at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere and during Davido’s performance at the One Lagos Music Fiesta.
Even though the dance step picked it spot at in major areas of Lagos (Agege, Mushin, Surulere) when it comes to what it is associated with it is even more broad than what you think. Mr Real explained;
It’s from an Uhuru song that I don’t even remember anymore.
Sonically, most of the songs created in the shaku shaku era noticably adapt the gqom sound. Gqom is a subgenre of South African house music that’s typified by the vibrancy of the sound. It originated in SA’s second largest city, Durban and was named after the Zulu word that signifies the drum. Gqom has exploded not just in SA, but in parts of the continent. So what is going on is that shaku shaku is being danced over songs that are gqom-esque, but with a local street feel.
Shaku shaku is a dance step that’s performed by crossing your arms in front of each other at the wrist, widening your legs a little, and launching into a graceful half-gallop. The rest of the movement involves mainly the dancer’s feet.
After months of bubbling beneath the surface, shaku shaku has become a bonafide viral hit; some have even pictured it has the Nigerian Gangnam style because of the slight similarities to Psy’s 2012 monster. The internet is now filled with thousands of videos of people attempting to shaku shaku, the likes of Wizkid, Davido, DJ Cuppy and Tiwa Savage have all posted videos of themselves in full stride.
As mentioned above, This new vibe has given rise to new acts and already established acts are eager to tap in the wave, like D’banj’s “Issa Banger” (featuring SlimCase and Mr Real), CDQ’s “Bolu” (featuring Idowest and Mr Real) also Yemi Alade tapping SlimCase for “Shakpati”. Another one could be in pipelines as SlimCase has hit the studio with Wizkid. And we also await his body of work the ‘Chronicles Of SlimCase”.
