Video: Dembiez Perform Real Harlem Shake
Bermuda record label Dembiez has joined the “Harlem Shake” craze, producing this dance video of the production team’s members and artists going wild on the steps in front of Hamilton’s City Hall.
But what sets the Dembiez version apart is that the Bermudians are performing the real Harlem Shake, not the joking, jerking, fist-pumping version seen in the thousands of videos of the world-wide dance contagion being posted to YouTube.
Made famous earlier this year by a group of teenagers in Queensland, Australia filming themselves dancing to American DJ Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” song, the video concept has since gone viral around the world.
“But the real Harlem Shake, a much more raw, technical, fluid, frenetic dance, was born in New York City more than 30 years ago,” reported the “New York Times” recently. “During halftime at streetball games held in Rucker Park, a skinny man known in the neighborhood as Al. B. would entertain the crowd with his own brand of moves, a dance that around Harlem became known as ‘The Al. B.’
“ … Al. B., whose real name was Albert Boyce, died in 2006 at 43. He spent much of his life dancing, his mother said, ‘to every rhythm, and every beat, and every song’ … Many give credit to one four-man dance crew, Crazy Boyz, for taking Al. B.’s moves to the next level [in the 1990s], popularising them enough for the mainstream.”
The Crazy Boyz have said they combined their “shake” — spastic arm and chest movements — with Al. B.’s style to produce the real Harlem Shake dance.
The crew eventually took the dance to the hip-hop world in music videos for artists like Eve and Diddy, only to watch its popularity fade in recent years.
Dembiez was officially launched last December when Cahlii Smith, Jumari Hayward, Shomari Warner and Coshaun Evans discovered they had a talent for creating and writing music together.
The production team is currently signing local talent from ages 14 to 20 under and assisting them with song writing, singing, music videos and photo shoots.
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Finally a Harlem Shake video worth watching.
my words exactly
Yea this was awesome! They killed it for the Bermy Harlem Shakes
Really enjoyed watching this…well done.
Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” was never really a dance though. It didn’t go out to reinvent the Harlem Shake. You need to just take the Harlem shake (Baauer’s version) for what it is, PURE CRAZINESS. Big Ups to Dembiez, real nice video regardless.