About Harlem Shake
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Harlem shake (dance)
The Harlem shake, originally called the albee, is a dance introduced in 1981 by a Harlem resident named "Al B". 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 dance became mainstream in 2001 when G. Dep featured the Harlem shake in his music video "Let's Get It".
History
The Harlem shake is a dance that originally began in Harlem, New York, in 1981. Since its beginnings it has spread to other urban areas and became popular in music videos. The self-purported inventor of the dance was "Al B", a Harlem resident. Because of its founder, the dance was originally called the "albee" in Rucker and Harlem, but then later became known as the Harlem shake.
Al B is quoted saying that the dance is "a drunken shake anyway, it's an alcoholic shake, but it's fantastic, everybody appreciates it." He said it comes from the ancient Egyptians and describes it as what the mummies used to do. Because they were all wrapped up, they couldn’t really move, all they could do was shake. Al B states that he has been doing the Harlem shake since 1981. The dance first caught on at the Entertainer's Basketball Classic or EBC and spread from there to other areas.
In popular culture
Though it started in 1981, the Harlem shake became mainstream in 2001 when G. Dep featured the dance in his music video "Let's Get It".
The Harlem shake is commonly associated with a similar dance move called 'The Chicken Noodle Soup'. The "Chicken Noodle Soup" evolved from the Harlem shake and exploded into popularity in the summer of 2006 when DJ Webstar and Young B brought it to the mainstream. The dance is referred to in the CunninLynguists song, "Old School", in Mac Dre's song, "Thizzle Dance," and in Nelly's song, "Dilemma". A band from New York City took the name of the dance and dubbed themselves Harlem Shakes.
In February 2013, an unrelated song named "Harlem Shake" originally uploaded to YouTube on May 10, 2012, went viral and became an Internet meme (see Harlem Shake meme). The "dance" being done in the Internet meme is not the Harlem shake.
Harlem Shake (song)
"Harlem Shake" is a song recorded by American DJ and producer Baauer. It was released as a free digital download by Mad Decent imprint label Jeffree's on May 22, 2012. The uptempo song incorporates a mechanical bassline, Dutch house synth riffs, a dance music drop, and samples of growling-lion sounds. It also samples Plastic Little's 2001 song "Miller Time", specifically the vocal "then do the Harlem shake", which is an allusion todance of the same name. Baauer added a variety of peculiar sounds to the song so that it would stand out.
The single did not begin to sell significantly until February 2013, when a YouTube video set to its music developed into an Internet meme of the same name. The media response to the meme helped increase the single's sales, as it reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also charted at number three in the United Kingdom and at number one in both Australia and New Zealand. The success of "Harlem Shake" prompted Billboard to include video streams as a new component of their charts.
"Harlem Shake" was well received by music critics, who viewed it as an appealing dance track, although some felt that it was more of a novelty song. American rapper Azealia Banks released a remix to the song on her SoundCloud page, which was subsequently removed at Baauer's request and led to a dispute between the two.
Background
In 2011, Baauer rededicated himself to music after studying at City College and began to practice making beats. He recorded "Harlem Shake" in 2012 in his bedroom studio in Brooklyn, New York. With the song, he wanted to record a high-pitched, Dutch house synthesizer over a hip hop track and make it stand out by adding a variety of peculiar sounds. He later referred to it as "a goofy, fun song". Baauer posted "Harlem Shake", along with several of his other recordings, on his SoundCloud page, and in April, Scottish DJ Rustie featured the song in his Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1.Record producer and Mad Decent label head Diplo heard the song, and released it on May 22 as a free digital download through Mad Decent's imprint label Jeffree's.
Music and lyrics
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"Harlem Shake" features harsh snares, a mechanical bassline, samples of growling lions, and Dutch house synth riffs. It has a high tempo characteristic of hip hop and a dance music drop."Harlem Shake" is categorized by Resident Advisor's Andrew Ryce as a hip hop and bass song,while David Wagner of The Atlantic views it as trap, a musical sub-genre with stylistic origins inEDM and Southern hip hop. Ryce writes that the song's music "represents the hip-hop contingent of" bass music, which is typified by rolling snares and jerky basslines, and finds it "particularly symptomatic of a growing strain of music obsessed with 'trap'". By contrast, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times feels that it "isn't a hip-hop song, but it is hip-hop-influenced."
The song begins with building synths and snares, and a syncopated sub-bass sound before a voice commands listeners to "do the Harlem shake". The line was sampled from hip hop groupPlastic Little's 2001 song "Miller Time". Baauer used the vocal sample after a friend had played him the song, which he said "got stuck in my head for a while". Plastic Little member Jayson Musson said that his line was inspired by a fist-fight that he ended by performing the harlem shake. He did not have a problem with Baauer using the sample without his permission and found the production "phenomenal", but felt that the allusion to the dance was "peculiar" and outdated: "I was like, Who the fuck is rapping about the Harlem Shake in 2012?"
"Harlem Shake" also features a sample of a feminine voice yelling "con los terroristas", which translates to "with the terrorists" in Spanish. Alex Alvarez of ABC News identifies the source of the sample as Héctor Delgado's "Los Terroristas", while Naomi Zeichner of The Fader says that it was taken from an a capella version of DJ duo Philadelphyinz's 2010 remix for "Con Alegria", a song recorded by Gregor Salto, DJ Solo, and DJ Gregory.
Neither vocal samples used on "Harlem Shake" were contractually cleared.
Commercial performance
"Harlem Shake" was released commercially in June 2012. Mad Decent commissioned a music video for the single at the time, but were not satisfied with the result and shelved it. It gradually received listens online, and was re-released as a single on January 8, 2013. However, it did not begin to sell significantly until February, when its music was set to a YouTube video that developed into an Internet meme of the same name. The 30-second video featured people dancing to the song and was parodied more than 3,000 times in other user-submitted videos. Baauer and Mad Decent were able to generate income from both the user-submitted videos and Baauer's original audio-only post on YouTube because of the site's Content ID service, which allows artists, labels, and publishers to monetize songs.
The late-week media response to the meme helped the single sell 12,000 units on iTunes in the week ending February 10, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It consequently entered the USDance/Electronic Digital Songs at number nine and the Dance/Electronic Songs at number twelve. Mad Decent's manager Jasper Goggins said that "Harlem Shake" was the "biggest thing" they have released, "and it's happened within six days." In the United Kingdom, "Harlem Shake" reached number twenty-two on the UK Singles Chart during the week of the meme's phenomena. By the end of the chart week, the single had climbed nineteen spots to number three. Martin Talbot, the Official Charts Company's managing director, said that the single's climb on the chart "underlines just how quickly this track has turned into a bone fide phenomenon. At the start of the week, it wasn't even selling enough to make the Top 20—but it is now one of the UK's most popular tracks."
The following week, "Harlem Shake" debuted at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and climbed to number one on the Dance/Electronic Songs, while selling 262,000 units. It was the twenty-first song in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one and was aided by 103 million weekly video streams, which was announced that week by Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan as a new component of their charts. Although Billboard and YouTube had discussed it for two years, "Harlem Shake"'s success prompted them to enact the chart policy. Billboard cited the song as "the biggest viral sensation since PSY's 'Gangnam Style'". However, because it lacked major label promotional support, the single registered low in airplay. "Harlem Shake" remained at number one on the Hot 100 in its second week, when it sold 297,000 digital units. It also received more airplay after being promoted to radio by Warner Bros. Records, who had agreed to a deal with Mad Decent on February 26 to distribute the song worldwide. "Harlem Shake" topped the Hot 100 for a third week and sold 228,000 units, despite a decline in YouTube streams.
Critical reception
Pitchfork Media's Larry Fitzmaurice labelled the song "Best New Track" upon its release in May 2012 and called it a "disorienting banger" with an "irresistible appeal" that "owes almost everything" to its "menacing, world-smashing bassline". Fitzmaurice wrote in conclusion, "Along with this purely visceral pleasure, it's hard not to marvel at how awesome those growling-lion samples sound." Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop complimented its "monstrous hits of bass, detailed trap-style hi-hats, and an infectiously unique synth riff," and commented that if the song "isn't a perfect banger, it's pretty damn close."
Andrew Ryce of Resident Advisor gave "Harlem Shake" a rating of three-and-a-half out of five and found its musical climax "admittedly satisfying—that is, until it resumes flailing like a novelty track", writing that "it's not hard to see why the track is well-liked, but its snowballing ubiquity is a bit of a head-scratcher, simply because it's not all that interesting." Similarly, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times said that, after hearing a minute of it being played during Power 105.1 FM's mixshow, the song "felt more like a novelty than like part of a strategy." Caramanica felt that its success, along with that of Macklemore's 2012 song "Thrift Shop", reflects a "centerless future" for hip hop and stated, "Depending on your lens, this reflects a tremendous cultural victory for hip-hop or the moment when hip-hop, as a construct, begins to lose meaning."
Remixes
On February 14, American rapper Azealia Banks released a remix to "Harlem Shake" on SoundCloud, which was then removed at Baauer's request. Banks disparaged Baauer on Twitter in response and claimed to have e-mails sent from him giving her permission to use the song. She then said that Diplo had sent her an e-mail telling her that the remix was removed because they would rather have rapper Juicy J on it. On February 16, Banks shared a music video for her remix on Vimeo, and revealed a purported e-mail from Baauer saying he liked the remix. Baauer responded in an interview for The Daily Beast, saying that they had planned to release a version of the song with Banks, but felt that her verse did not meet their expectations:
She laid something on 'Harlem Shake' and it was so/so. Didn't love it. And that was a little while ago, and since all this video stuff happened, our plans all changed. Because of that, we decided to just release the song on its own with no vocal version. So we told her, 'Please don't release your version.' And she said, 'Well, I'm going to put it online anyway.' And we said, 'Please don't. We'd really like it if you didn't.' And she did.
Jon Caramanica of The New York Times cited Banks' remix as one of her best songs, while Chris Martins of Spin wrote that she delivers "fire-hot verse after fire-hot verse" and facetiously remarked that "Banks raps all over your dumb 'Harlem Shake' meme".
Pitbull and Jim Jones also recorded freestyle raps over the song. After releasing his version, Jones claimed in an interview that "Harlem Shake" was a song he originally recorded one year ago for an album by Pauly D, but they ultimately scrapped it: "When I started to hear the 'Harlem Shake' and heard the beat, I was like damn, I had the record for a year. So I just put the record out."
Harlem Shake (meme)
The Harlem Shake is an Internet meme in the form of a video in which a group of people performs a comedy sketch accompanied by a short excerpt from the song "Harlem Shake". As a meme, the video was replicated by many people, using the same concept, and this rapidly led to it becoming viral in early February 2013, with thousands of "Harlem Shake" videos being made and uploaded to YouTube every day at the height of its popularity.
The form of the meme was established in a video uploaded on February 2 by five teenagers from Queensland, Australia known on YouTube as The Sunny Coast Skate. The video started a viral trend of people uploading their own "Harlem Shake" videos to YouTube. The teenagers' video was, in its turn, a follow-up to a video by a YouTube comedy vlogger named Filthy Frank which featured a section where several costumed people danced to the song "Harlem Shake" by Baauer.
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