Shake Ass First, Think Later

Throw some Sexyy Red on while you read this one.

If my ass is my bottom it must somehow be connected to my feet. If my feet ground me to the Earth does that mean my ass does too?

Leading With Your Ass

There is an inexplicable need for me to bounce this booty at any chance handed to me, simply at my soul’s whim.

I only stop myself on a few occasions:

1. When I’m in the bottom 50 percentile of ass shakers in the room and remember I indeed do not have a big juicy fruity booty (I can make these little lovely lady lumps move when I’m not thinkin’ just tweakin’. Otherwise I might as well sit down)

2. If I’m alone in a quiet public space

3. When I’m in a room of voyeuristic beans on toast bandits that want me to be their dancing American monkey

MIND YOU, when I say “stop myself” I mean do a polite BBL bounce instead of putting my legs up on the wall and causing an 8.7 richter scale twerkquake.

*BOW BOW BOW*

Recently I was reminded of a former friend glancing over at me during a party we put on and fixing her lips to say “wow, you sure do lead with your ass when you dance.”

God bless her hatin’ bitch ass, she was always tryna wiggle sumn and personally I ain’t never seen nothin move on her. I’d be jealous too.

It did really have an affect on me nonetheless, it shut me down for the rest of the night and here I am thinking about it well over a year later. Aside from the statement being generally untrue,(I love to twerk but I’ll start acting a fool on the dance floor in ANY style. Catch me in a praise break on the floor) there is absolutely nothing wrong with it- NAY, it is what gives me my superhuman, super freedom, super powers. It was not until around this time I became apprehensive of shakin’ this THANG *read in the voice of Kevin Gnapoor from Mean Girls*.

It’s time for me to handle the anxiety of eyes on my ass because, actually, that’s where I’d prefer them to be. I wish I could see myself shake ass from your perspective, but since we haven’t come up with that technology yet I must rest easily knowing I’m keeping your attention.

To get a hold on it, here are a collection of reminders for myself to behave only as I wish, never through the expectations of appropriate conduct.

1. Bottom 50 Percentile/No Big Juicy Fruity Booty

I will not stop reminding y’all that I’m delusional. It’s for my own safety I’m deceptively confident in everything I do and often convince people of things I ain’t got no business talking about. I do it for sport, oopsie poopsie! I still will never be enter-a-twerk-contest level delusional.

I don’t care how much these lor flapjacks vibrate, I would never set myself up for some shit like that. First day I’m allowed to stand up after getting my BBL, y’all gone see this on stage throwing it for a couple racks. I know that’s right, but until then we’ll keep it lowkey.

Here’s the kicker, the dance floor is not a twerk contest. Life is not a competition. Typing that was hard…got me averting my eyes from the screen and scratching my temple. Yoinks.

Listen here Momma Carma, you do not exist to win. Your urge to toot it up is not prompted by the lure of seeing yourself on top of others, it comes from the redirection of energy inside of you. As my energy is lifted, shaking ass is a means of directing that energy into an expression of joy. Some people smile, the elite throw that ass in a circle.

2. Alone in Public Silence

If colonialism has a distinct sound it must be silence. The trains in London are so quiet they scream. At first I thought it was just odd, eventually I realized it was violence. White people’s stares became duct tape to the mouth.

I am often quickly swept into the dustpan of a culture. Now it was me who threw looks of disapproval at African uncles watching Facebook videos out loud on the bus with the gull to cackle at them too. Like my nigga, you can’t watch it with the captions on??

No.

The silence is suffocating. It knocks your last breath to lie in every space lifeless. Noise comes out of people innately, being silent is a choice, but a need to create predictable producer/consumer behavior is reason enough to create a society default setting of the opposite. Societal silence is special, it not only exists in the absence of noise, it exists in perfect rows of chairs and desks in a third grade classroom, silence exists in automatically “queuing up” for a line, silence exists in every preconceived rule people collectively abide by in public without letting the new people know.

Good for me, that gives many avenues to create noise, my instrument of choice is these here buns I got.

Releasing that energy I mentioned in the previous section is a liberatory tool. The nature of being your own autonomous creature while simultaneously housing the many spirits of your ancestors makes ass shaking a powerful tool of liberation connecting your own will to do what you want with the practice of those who existed before you. You may be dismissive at the notion of it, but that is because violent colonization worked thoroughly for people to remove their spiritual intention from everyday actions. The work being done to make this seem trivial is exactly why I know it’s imperative to hold closely.

I will not be silent.

I choose to make noise.

The noise I make is holy.

Shake that ass shorty.

3. Beans on Toast Bandits

Mane, these muhfuckas out here in London make me feel like I’m on a stage with white gloves and black face paint in 1917. I start dancing and I might as well take my Jordans off and replace em with tap shoes.

How I feel dancing at clubs in London

British people don’t be dancing when they go out…that is until they see me and get infected with da bug. Before I get there they have to stand their with a stupid ass smile on their face or worse, side eyeing me because they too scared to be seen being enamoured. That’s for the best actually because it doesn’t feel flattering when they just up and stare. It feels more like they’re watching that one 90s Black sitcom come to life in front of them. Ion like dat, but…

My dearest Carma, you mustn’t be discouraged by the perception others hold of you. It is easy to become consumed by the paralysis of observation, better yet examination being done by others, but shawty you not under a microscope. You are a person existing in space and it is not up to you to break out of or uphold the characters others create for you. Especially not off no vaudeville “Dance Monkey Dance!” type shit.

When placed under examinations I did not sign up for I am allowed to react however my body tells me. If that is to completely stop dancing, then listen. If that is to tell niggas to back the fuck up and dance in they own space, then listen. If that is to continue doing what brought them over in the first place, then I must listen. The attention of others is not a damnation of how I choose to operate and I can continue through their inspection without adhering to what I believe they’re looking for.

At the end of the day there’s only one thing to keep doing:

DAMN NIGGA, JUST DANCE!

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Y’all! I got something fun coming this Thursday for ya. 👀

Get tuned in and ready to get a good look into what inspires me.

Stay beautiful and combative y’all. <3