Harlem Shake

About

About

"Harlem Shake" , not to be confused with the hip hop dance style , is the title of a 2012 heavy bass instrumental track produced by Baauer. In February 2013, the song spawned a series of dance videos that begin with a masked individual dancing alone in a group before suddenly cutting to a wild dance party featuring the entire group. Despite what the name suggests, ^[1] the videos present a wide range of hip hop dances, including the Bernie , Twerking as well as improvisations.

Origin

Origin

"Harlem Shake" by Baauer ^[8] , the stage name of American music producer Harry Rodrigues, was uploaded to YouTube on August 23rd, 2012 and released by Diplo's Mad Decent record label, under their sub label Jefferies initially as a free download, along with the B-side "Yaow!". The lyric "do the Harlem Shake" is a sample from the 2001 track " Miller Time " by Philadelphia party rap crew, Plastic Little. The lyric was taken from an incident in member Jayson Musson's life where he got into a fight and finished by getting up and doing the dance. Bauuer's song was met with positive reception from electronica & trap music blogs, as well as other artists including Diplo, Brodinski, and Flosstradamus. On January 30th, 2013, video blogger Filthy Frank uploaded an episode that opens with four people dressed in latex suits dancing to Baauer's "Harlem Shake" (shown below, right).

The Dance

The Harlem Shake is a style of dance that involves pivoting the shoulder out while popping the other shoulder out at the same time. Introduced in 1981 by a Harlem, New York City resident named "Al Bm," the dance was initially referred to as "albee" after his name, but later became known as the Harlem Shake as its prominence grew beyond the neighborhood. The popularity of the dance reached its peak around 2001, when it was featured or referenced in songs by several New York-based hip hop artists such as Jadakiss, Cam'ron and P. Diddy.

Spread

Spread

The dance itself is defined by Urban Dictionary as 'An eccentric upper body dance move that involves the shaking of the upper torso and shoulders.' On February 2nd, 2013, several parodies of DizastaMusic's video were uploaded by YouTubers TheSunnyCoastSkate and PHL_On_NAN, the latter of which would go viral on February 5th, amassing 300,000 views within 24 hours and prompting further parodies from other YouTubers shortly after.

On February 7th, YouTuber hiimrawn uploaded a version titled "Harlem Shake v3 (office edition)" (shown below is a re-upload from a different user) featuring the staff of online video production company Maker Studios. The video instantly went viral, amassing more than 7.4 million views in the first week, as well as inspiring a notable subset of contributions from well-known Internet companies, including BuzzFeed , ^[2] CollegeHumor , Vimeo and Facebook ^[7] among many others. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

The Daily Caller's Net Neutrality PSA

On December 13th, the conservative news site The Daily Caller ^[3] published a video in which FCC Chairman Aji Pai performs the "Harlem Shake" after presenting a list titled "7 Things You Can Still Do on the Internet After Net Neutrality " (shown below).

The following day, producer Diplo tweeted at Baauer to "call the lawyers" using his @_diplo_ Twitter account, leading Baauer to respond that he was "taking action" (shown below). ^[37]

That evening, Billboard ^[38] published a statement from Baauer, in which he claimed to be "exploring every single avenue available to get it taken down."

"The use of my song in this video obviously comes as a surprise to me as it was just brought to my attention. I want to be clear that it was used completely without my consent or council. My team and I are currently exploring every single avenue available to get it taken down. I support Net Neutrality like the vast majority of this country and am appalled to be associated with its repeal in anyway."

FOIA Request

On April 6th, 2018, NBC News ^[40] reported that the nonprofit organization Muckrock had requested emails pertaining to the creation of the video. However, the FCC denied the Freedom of Information Act request.

“The very basic fact that they’re unwilling to even disclose whether anybody had objections to this internally, or if they were all aboard, is the larger problem,” said J. Pat Brown, the executive editor of Muckrock. “You are entitled answers out of your government.”

Versioning

The majority of early Harlem Shake videos adhered to the title format denoting its numeric version (ex: "The Harlem Shake v2"), but the practice soon became redundant and phased out as the volume of uploads continued to grow on YouTube.