Listen Here: Where'd the Dancers Go?

by Ronnie Reese

I’m walking back to the whip through a grocery store parking lot and the dude waiting for my spot is bumping Too Short’s “Short But Funky.” 2006, and cats are listening to “Short But Funky” at their leisure? And Nas says hip-hop is dead. Shame on you, Esco.

Hearing Short Dog took me back. The late eighties and early nineties are the period commonly referred to as the “golden age” of hip-hop, but personally, I don’t think there’s too much to the designation. There’s 2000 shit that’s just as hot as anything that came out in 1990. The only thing that’s changed is the name on the back of the uniform—and at times, the name on the front of the uniform, too. This rap thing has to evolve, you know, and from this evolution comes an overlap in its generations. One head’s Native Tongues golden age is another person’s Slim Shady LP.

What I do miss, however, is the dancing. There was a time when almost every popular hip-hop act had backup dancers, from Big Daddy’s Kane’s “Scoob Lover, my brother, Scrap Lover, my other,” to Heavy D’s G-Wiz and the late Trouble T-Roy. You knew these cats’ names—they were family. I remember seeing Heavy D and the Boyz, Kool Moe Dee, MC Hammer, and about three or four other crews in concert as a sophomore in high school. Hammer might as well have had an Angolan village onstage with him. The shit was completely off the meter.

Even some of “realest” MCs in contemporary hip-hop started out leading their live sets on some Rhythm Nation shit. Here’s A.G. speaking on Fat Joe in a March interview with HalftimeOnline.com:

“From day one, I remember when he [Joe] did Apollo and he was winning every night. He would show up in limousines with dancers, Gucci suits, and the whole first three rows were his whole neighborhood…this was when he was on his smooth shit—he wasn’t even doing the gangster shit. “Big Shot” was the name of the song, and he had dancers, a green Gucci suit, and a cane. He just looked like a star.”

Joey Coca, who, like many others, has clearly forgotten where he came from, is a good example of what the hip-hop backup dancer has become. A couple of summers ago, he was talking about how much his niggas didn’t dance. He was right. Niggas weren’t dancing anymore, and white folks never did. It was like seeing those World Class Wrecking Cru shots of Dre in the white sequins. Et tu Dre?


Even Public Enemy had backup dancers, although they didn’t dance as much as they marched in haunting precision and reminded America that The New Negro Has No Fear.

So, what’s happened to those nimble cats in the back? For one, the majority of hip-hop is no longer dance music. When you see guys and girls dancin’, a lot of people wouldn’t consider what their asses are wiggling to, hip-hop. Are “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It,” and “Laffy Taffy” really representative of our culture?

Of course they are—to me, at least. I have love for it all, but I got my weight up as a 1988 to 1992, 1993 head—I actually remember when hip-hop was poor. Now, I’m happy just knowing that the hillbilly shit is making money. People That Used to Be Poor and Are Now Getting Paid is definitely hip-hop—at its finest.

Groups like D4L and Dem Franchise Boyz also signify another reason why the dancer has fallen off—they’re both as soft as a bag of dead mice. Rap’s creative climate has hardened considerably since the late eighties. That’s not to say it wasn’t all hood back then. It’s been hood since day one, but in more creative times, the gutter shit wasn’t the face of things to come. It’s a Hard Knock Life For Us in 2006­, which leaves little room for splits and kick-flips. The thought of having dancers onstage with Wu is completely preposterous, if not outright comical.

Clearly, a renaissance is needed. What did Michael [Jackson] say? “Life ain’t so bad at all, when you’re living off the wall.” Mike knew. We have to get back on our Kid ‘N Play, especially with the sorry state of showmanship in the game today. No fun. After all, this is still a game…

Right?