Hello everyone, I'm here with another song breakdown, and it's for a song I remember being on the radio when I was a kid, and I still like it, but it's like, the song hasn't really escaped 2003.
The song in question is "Move It Like This" by Baha Men, a group that lives up to their name by being men from the Bahamas. Most people are familiar with their hit "who let the dogs out" which has its own ballpark of things going on , but I wanted to do something more focused today. This will be a breakdown of all the dances mentioned in the song "Move It Like This", because I planned on looking them all up anyway and I figured I might as well write down what I find for the website. And no, none of this info was on one of those lyric explaining sites. I looked all these up myself.
In the lyrics of the song I've identified 14 distinct, named "dance moves". I've decided to split these all up over a bunch of articles I'll release sporadically, but the dances will be in the order of mention. So without further Ado, let's get into the groove.
The Twist:
The Twist is a novelty dance that became a dance craze in the early 60s. The dance is known for its accompanying song of the same name, originally by Hank Ballard, but immortalized in pop culture once covered by Chubby Checker. Checker also recorded a second song about the dance, "Let's Twist Again". The Twist is a song with a sequel. The dance itself it's just kinda a twist motion done with the arms, legs and hips. A simple yet fun dance.
The Electric Slide (the Electric):
The Electric Slide is a line dance set to Electric Boogie by Marcia Griffiths. The original dance has 22 steps, but there are a number of variations to this dance. These variants can have anywhere from 24-18 steps. Amusingly, one of these variants is simply known as "Electric Slide 2". The Electric is a dance with a sequel, as if The Twist 2 wasn't already absurd.
The (Chocolate) Bump:
I can't find specifically what the "chocolate" bump is, but the bump is a two person dance dated to the 70's and the long and short of it is people bumping their hips together to the music. There's really not much you can say about the bump, it's very "what you see is what you get" and it's main point of appeal for a lot of people was getting your keister as close to someone else's as you could without someone else acting like you invented a new level of inappropriateness all by yourself. If anyone has more information on this one let me know and I'll make a dated update.
The Running man:
The Running Man is a fairly well known dance. It consists of a shuffle and slide maneuver. According to Essence Magazine, the dance was invented by Paula Abdul for Janet Jackson. The dance does share a name with a Film Abdul choreographed around the time, in particular it was a loose adaptation of a Steven king novel, but I can't find any solid information confirming or denying this connection. That being said, it keeps popping in as a "fad" every few years. My thing is, is it even a fad at that point. I think after the third time it becomes part of a popularity cycle.