Rashaka, The Gulf, & The Cupid Shuffle

[timepiececlock]

A week and two days ago I left the deep South for what would be the final time this year, and probably the final time for a long while. I hope to return to the Gulf Coast again, particularly to Louisiana, though I don't know when or how that can happen. I'm a little relieved to get out of the humidity and the oppressive shadow that Hurricane Katrina continues to cast over the communities of Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama. But I also know that I'll miss all those things I came to love in my 6 months down here, from the crazy weather sky to New Orleans itself, that city that won a permanent corner of my heart. If you ever go to New Orleans and stay for a week or more, it becomes so easy to understand why the people love this city so deeply, and why so many travelers come to New Orleans and then stay there. It's crazy, and dark, and fun, and scary, and bright, and so very very alive. I'll miss it.


Now for a little less serious note:

While I was in Mississippi and Louisiana, if we left the radio on to the local pop station then not two hours would go by before I'd here that song.

That song.

THAT song.

I've figured out, from brief conversations with volunteers, tourists, and the outside world during my stay with AmeriCorps in the Gulf, that the song I'm talking about hasn't yet spread beyond the Gulf region. It doesn't get played in other states, in Carolina or California or Wisconsin or Kansas or Maine. People don't drop work, get into a line, and uniformly dance to a song that has one verse and a criminally infectious vibe. Hell, I can't even get anyone on teh_music to upload an mp3 of it for me, and those peeps are masters of spreading obscure music no one's even heard of.

But if you live in Louisiana or Missippi, and probably in Texas or Alabama or Georgia too, you know the song I'm talking about. When you leave those places and go to the rest of the country, it almost feels like being in a tiny club, because down there it's played over and over until people want to throw their stereos out the car window--- and yet in Atlanta 17,000 people just broke the world record for largest line dance, dancing to it.

The music video is fun but amateur, and the album cover looks my nine year old cousin designed it. But that doesn't change the fact that at 1 o'clock in the morning my entire drunken party stopped in the middle of the street in the French Quarter to dance to this song, just because the club was playing it so loud it drifted out to fill the night and send real musicians (of which there are many in NOLA) screaming into their beds writhing over the unquenchability of a ridiculous but danceable pop song.

When oh when will the rest of America learn The Cupid Shuffle?

Comments

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I think one of the thing that amuses me about it is that it's SO EASY. It's way less difficult than the Macarena, for example. Someone mentioned that it was a simple version of the Elecrtic slide, and I think that's sort of true. I like it, though. It's part of my whole experience in the Gulf this year.